Guardian of Altariel
by Stu76.80
Summary: In 120 of the 4th Age Legolas' mind turns to Valinor. In one year, Legolas will loose a friend, meet a princess, & become enemy to a King, all 4 the love of the mortal daughter of Aragorn, Elessiel...but is it really folly to love the elves?... RESUMED
1. A Summons to Gondor

The Elf turned in his sleep, dreaming he heard a noise. His ears pricked as his eyes flew open to scan the dark forest around him. All seemed well within the abandoned hollow he had made a hasy camp in. He sat up to check his horse, though the beast made no move, yet still he sensed something was amiss.

He stood quickly as he heard another noise in the forest beyong his camp. He pressed his back against the trunk of an ancient mallorn tree and readied his bow, delighting in the familiar creak of the arrow as he fit it against the knott.

He slipped quietly from behind the tree as he recognised the rhythmic sound of footsteps on the forest floor, pulling the heavy string of his bow back against his cheek. " Speak, or be silenced." He growled at the ghostly creature before him.

The breeze stole through the trees as the stranger pulled the horse they rode on to a sharp stop. " Please don't!" It cried in a desperate voice as it held it's hand before it's face. " I bring word to Legolas of Ithilien and Gimli of the Glittering Caves from Queen Arwen of Gondor. You are Legolas of Ithilien?" It said quickly.

Legolas relaxed the weapon in his hands, fitting the bow back into it's quiver quickly. He nodded silently to the rider and indicated for him to follow. " Unarmed riders should not wander the dark." He said quietly as they arrived back in the hollow of his camp. Legolas quickly built a small fire and sat himself against the base of a tree, regarding the rider with slitted eyes as he demounted and seated himself at the opposite side of the fire.

" I agree, but what of those of us who are armed?" The rider said slyly. He pulled back his cloak to reveal a long, slender dagger at his hip with a glinting smile. " What advice have you for the armed?"

" If it is stealth you seek in trying to find me, do not ride a horse, it gives the game away." He said flatly. " Why were you trying to find me? What word does Arwen Undomiel send?"

The rider sighed heavily and hung his head momentarily. When he looked up again, Legolas saw the glint of tears in his eyes, brightened by the fire light. " Where is Master Gimli, for she sends word to him also?"

" My companion has been called urgently to his home under the Hornburg, now what word does the Queen send?" Legolas replied impatiently. Something in the face of this messenger made his blood run cold, and as the man sighed heavily Legolas knew the topic of his message.

" Queen Arwen bid me tell you her husband's healthy deminishes, and he wishes for the comfort from friends of old. She bid me summon you to Gondor as swiftly as possible." The rider said sadly.

Legolas remained silent, when he replied finally his voice was sullen with grief. " Send word to your Queen Arwen that I shall come to Gondor before three days have ended. Go now, or I shall arrive before you." He stood smoothly and began to stub out the fire with his foot.

The rider stood also and bowed slightly before turning on his heel and leading his horse into the forest. Legolas watched him go as the sun began to rise over the canopy of ancient trees. He pulled himself from his revery before moving to the side of his horse.

****

" Come, friend, we shall travel along the Anduin, for it shall guide us to our destination." He said before leading the horse at fast pace in the towards the distant rumble of the river.


	2. Old Friends and New Families

Legolas reached the Great Gates of Minis Tirith within three days of leaving Loth Lorien. He had journeyed across the Pelennor fields, and felt the warmth of the Minis Tirith's nightly lights before he felt the warmth of the wooden doors beneath his hand. 

The guards at the gate admitted him without questioning his business, knowing the sight of an elf, an likewise knowing an elf could only be in Minas Tirith to see the King and Queen. 

Legolas passed in silence until he reached the final gate of the massive citadel, and caught his breath when he saw the man waiting beside the doors for him. " Aragorn?!" He cried, rushing forward to meet his friend. 

The man stepped out into the brighter lights of the street, causing confusion to rain down on Legolas' face. " No, I am not Elessar, but I know you, Legolas of the Elf kingdom of Mirkwood. My father has spoken much of you." said the young man. 

Legolas frowned at his mistake, on closer inspection he could see the differences between the young man before him, and Aragorn, it was not until he had offered a murmured apology that Legolas registered what the man had said. " You are the son of Aragorn?" He asked.

The man nodded slowly and opened the doors of the citadel, beckoning to Legolas to follow him along the clean, white stone paved streets of the ancient centre of Gondor. 

Legolas stopped him after a lengthy silence. " You are Eldarion?" He asked in disbelief.

" I am Eldarion, son of Aragorn the second, the Elfstone." Eldarion said proudly, and for the first time Legolas was struck by the youthful appearance of the man. Eldarion turned again and continued through a sprawing courtyard lit by candles, into a massive stone home. He led Legolas along a winding passage, stopping before a set of massive wooden doors, the White Tree of Gondor burnt into the wood. 

" You have come to see my father?" Eldarion asked slowly in a hushed voice. " Leave your horse here, it shall be tended to."

Legolas nodded mutely. Eldarion pressed open the doors, and followed Legolas quietly into the room, coming to stand by the corner of the great bed that dominated the room. Legolas stood by the edge of the bed and caught his breath silently at the sight of the man before him.

The old man had a short, crisp white beard and crinkled eyes that were only half open. He held in his great, dark hand a goblet rested firmly on his lap. His hair was shoulder-length and as white as his beard. Legolas looked into the sleeping face of the man, marvelling at the trasnformation. 

Where Aragorn had once been the picture of stately pride, Legolas felt him demeaned now- for King Elessar, the Elfstone, was nothing more than the bent version of his former grandeure. He woke at the sound of footsteps and almost dropped his goblet. 

Legolas came to sit on the edge of the bed, and having removed the goblet from Aragorn's coarse hands, he held one within his own two, slender, young hands. " My old friend." He said quietly.

Aragorn smiled and sighed heavily. " You have come atlast, for I have waited for you. But where is Gimli?" Aragorn said. His brow creased in a frown, and the already furrowed lines of his skin increased across his forehead.

" Gimli left my side two weeks past, returning to his own kingdom for a time. But he shall come if I send for him." Legolas hurried to say. 

Aragorn waved the Elf's comment away with a chuckle. " I see no point. He would take many days to reach me, for I know I am not alone in having aged." Aragorn coughed and his breath rattled slightly. " How long has it been since I last saw the face of Legolas Greenleaf?"

Legolas smiled and patted his friend's hand. " Fifty years of men I have been away. And only now it seems to long."

" Fifty years of men. You have missed much, though no doubt you've lived much in your absense. I hear you kingdom of Ithilien is a sight, the glory of old, or so I am told."

Legolas shook his head slowly. " My people have long since left, few now remain in the elf homes of old. I have come from Lorien."

Aragorn cocked an ancient eyebrow. Legolas marvelled as the old man bloistered the pillows behin his back, dragging himself into a sitting position. " Fair Lorien. What can you tell me of the enchanted city of Caras Galadron?"

Legolas sighed sadly, shaking his head. " It is enchanted no more, old friend. It has been too many years, and none now live even in the realms of East Lorien. Celeborn and his folk have long departed the Grey Havens."

" Yes, I know. But you have remained, Legolas?"

" I have travelled far these long years, and I am beginning to feel the pull of the shore. I fear my time here is ending." Legolas conceided. It was the first time he had said the words aloud, and baulked at how they seemed to slip from his tongue so naturally.

Aragorn nodded and gave a crackling old laugh. " I fear much the same. Though I doubt a boat will save me from my plight!" He cried. He laughed again which bought an insatiable bout of coughing. He becokoned for Eldarion to come closer, the prince came to sit on the opposite side of the bed. " Legolas, you have seen Eldarion?"

" Yes, father. We met at the gates." Eldarion said in a worried tone. He tried to lay his hand against the brow of his father, but the old man slapped it away quickly. Eldarion was startled by the force behind his rebuke- he had not seen his father with this much energy for weeks, and knew it was the presence of Legolas that had to be thanked.

Legolas smiled at the interaction between father and son. " He is your image, Aragorn." Legolas said smoothly.

Aragorn laughed and patted the hands of Legolas and Eldarion with his own. " That is what I fear! Often I find myself praying he be more like his sisters and take after his mother. But no matter of that now, there shall be plenty of time for talking, I wish to sit!"

" Father, you are sitting." Eldarion said, worrying- not for the first time- about his father's mental clarity.

Aragorn shushed him loudly. " Sit in a seat, not a bed. I wish to sit before all my family, and my old friend-" He grasped Legolas' hand within his own and smiled fondly "- and eat!" He cried ceremoniously.

Legolas was ushered out of the room while Eldarion helped his father to prepare. Legolas wandered through the halls of the house and out into the courtyard. 

He had been leaning against the stone bannister of a ivy-covered balcony for only minutes before he heard a familiar voice calling to him. **" Legolas, welcome lost friend."**

Legolas turned to see Arwen comig to stand behind him. They embraced warmly, and Arwen kissed his brow and whispered elvish words of welcome. 

****

" It is good to see you are well." Legolas said finally.

Arwen nodded and pulled her shawl around her shoulders as a breeze stole through the courtyard. **" How are you after so many years away from us?" **

Legolas shrugged and turned to face Arwen after a minutes' silence. **" I regret not having come sooner. There are no words for the hardship you are facing."**

Arwen shrugged now with a bitter little smile. " **It was forseen. But I have my daughters, and Eldarion. They share the burden of my pain."** She sighed, and Legolas caught the glimmer of a tear in her eye.

Legolas laid his hand softly over Arwens and smiled warmly. " **As do I."** He said.

Behind them a maid cleared her throat and called to Arwen that Aragorn bid them return. Arwen turned back to Legolas after dismissing the maid. "** It is good to see old friends. Go to Aragorn, I must summon my daughters."** She kissed Legolas' brow again and walked quickly across the courtyard, vanishing into the night.

Legolas looked after Arwen for a few moments before finding his way through the elaborate system of corridors until he reached the throne room. When he finally reached the throne room Legolas discovered only one long table was set, at one end stood was a grand seat, carved from dark wood with the symbols of the house of Numenor. To each side of the seat were similar chairs of less granduer, and along each side of the table were two more chairs. Aragorn sat at the head of the table, leaning heavily upon his elbow which rested beside his plate. Arwen sat at his right, a picture of plactitude, and Eldarion sat to his left, the stoic symbol of Aragorn's youth. Beside Eldarion sat a young woman of thirty Legolas had never seen, but knew instantly to be one of daughters, both she and her sister who sat opposite looked almost exactly like Arwen. Each had long, flowing dark hair and porcelein skin, quiet lips and roaring eyes. 

" Ah, Legolas you will finally see all my family!" Aragorn roared joyously. He beckoned for Legolas to come forward towards the opposite end of the table.

Aragorn stood slowly and gestured his hands towards Eldarion. " You have met Eldarion, My eldest and heir." Eldarion nodded and smiled quietly. Aragorn turned to the woman sitting beside Eldarion. " My eldest daughter, Ardael." Ardael nodded in recognition with a small smile. Aragorn turned to Ardael's sister sitting opposite. " This is my second youngest, Arwelil. Twins." He said with a grin at Legolas - twins born of elvish blood were considered blessed. Aragorn turned to the empty seat beside Arwelil. " Where is Elessiel?" He asked his gathered family.

Arwen smiled and placed her hand on Aragorn's arm. " She will come." She said simply. 

Aragorn sighed with a soft smile " You shall have to meet my youngest at some later date, Arwen has her riding far and often these days, with messages to my allies." He sighed and resumed his seat, beckoning for Legolas to take the empty seat beside Ardael. 

Legolas marvelled at the sight of Aragorn, unravelling from his stupour before his family. The party of six drank and made merriment deep into the night, Legolas and Aragorn sharing stories for The War of the Ring and the age afterwards, and all of Legolas' travels, and it was only when Arwen finally excused herself to chambers that the party began to dissolve. Aragorn bade Eldarion, Ardael, and Arwelil to leave him to counsel with Legolas. 

Each daughter kissed their father lightly on the brow as they left, and Eldarion said nothing, but placed his hand firmly on his father's shoulder to look down into his eyes before departing. And when Aragorn turned to Legolas, the Elf was sadened to see the age return to the King's eyes. His exuberance seemed to dissapear with his family as the king led Legolas slowly through the corridors and out into the courtyard. 

They sat on a stone bench with their faces turned out towards the peaceful land of Gondor, both men's faces glimmering in the night air, though Aragorn's seemed to be faded to ash, and Legolas' bright as diamond.

At length Aragorn placed his hand on Legolas' shoulder. **" It is better than I can say to see your face again, old friend. But something troubles you."**

Legolas nodded silently for a moment before answering. **" Long have I desired to look upon the face of King Elessar. It hase been too long. And I fear it will be too short." ** He said sadly.

Aragorn sighed and held his aged hands out before him, inspecting their leathery appearance. The skin on the back of his hands was scarred from uncounted battles, and skin of his palms smooth and worn from too many years of use. **" I do not fear death, Legolas, but what it shall leave behind for my family. Ardael and Arwelil are married, they will prosper, and the lives of their children shall measure three lives of man for many generations to come. Eldarion will rule in my steed, and serve Gondor proudly- he will be the pride of his kingdom. But Arwen...Arwen I fear for. She will not linger here once I am gone, but I fear for where she shall go."**

" To the Havens?" Legolas asked quietly.

Aragorn shook his head. **" No, Legolas. She will not leave the shores of Middle Earth, in this age, or any. Her fate it sealed, and I fear also, I do not regret the part I have played in her downfall. For all the stars that were in the sky when I met her, I would not revoke a single moment of our short lives together. But that does not mean I do not wish some other fate on her." ** Aragorn paused, his breath coming in short rasps for a moment after speaking for so long. In the hour it had been since their feast Legolas watched the last vestiges of strength leave his dear friend, and he knew with utter certainty Aragorn had almost reached his end. **" At times I have known her heart better than my own, and I know now where she shall go."**

" She would not stay with Gondor?"

" No, for Gondor loves her dearly, as it loves me. And my memory will haunt the corners of her mind, and this city forever. I know my wife, Legolas. She could not look upon the faces of our children once I am gone." The king turned away, looking to the north. **" She will return to the home of her kin, and linger until the short years of her life are utterly spent. Alone, in pain. This I have been told, and long forseen." **

Legolas' gasped and shook his head in sorrow. **" Could you not stay longer?" ** He said helplessly, reminded of when his own father had left the shores of Middle Earth so many years before.

Aragorn's words were no louder than a whisper when he answered. **" I will stay for eternity, within the love of my wife, and the pride of my children, for these things are ageless. But my time in Middle Earth, as well as yours, has come to an end."**

"I do not understand." Legolas said slowly. 

Aragorn turned his steely gaze towards the eternally youthful face of his friend. Legolas caught a glimmer of something behind the King's dark, rheumy eyes that had not been there before. **" You will understand, my dear friend. Dawn will shed light on more than my kingdom. But now I must leave, Arwen seeks counsell with me." **And with that, Aragorn stood and ambled into the darkness, leaving Legolas to contemplate his parting statement until he finally retired, little more than an hour before dawn.

***

****


	3. The Passing of a King

It had been seven days since Legolas had arrived in Gondor, and within that time he had fallen into a comfortable pattern of activities. Each morning he would rise with the sun and ride his horse deep into the vallies surrounding Minas Tirith until the sun was high in the sky. He would then spend the remaining hours of sunlight in counsel with Arwen or Eldarion before going to Aragorn when the sun sank each evening. Conversations with Arwen were spoken in elvish, and always concerned the history of the elves. They would speak for long hours about the kingdoms of the past, and the people who ruled them. With Eldarion Legolas would speak of his travels, the ways of Aragorn's rule, and the ways Eldarion might rule in the steed of his father, the young man had many questions about his father's role in the uniting of the free people of Middle Earth. 

And with Aragorn Legolas would speak of anything and everything. They would walk in the courtyards, speaking at times of their travels together, and the time they had spent apart, how they had occupied themselves over the last century, and occasionally lapsing into elvish when the topic called for it. As the days had worn down they had stopped walking the streets of the citadel, and Aragorn would speak with Legolas in his otherwise empty throne room. This seemed a sign to Legolas that he was nearing the end of his stay in Gondor, an idea that was only strengthened by the arrival of Aragorn's questions. He would ask Legolas to perform small tasks for him, it had been Aragorn's idea for Legolas to speak with Eldarion and Arwen each day about their lives after the death of the king.

Now Legolas stood with his back to the doors of Minas Tirith's massive stables. He cared for his horse with tenderness, speaking in soft words to the beast when it made startled noises, feeding it apples from his bare hand. The elf was so consumed by his task that he was massively startled by the presence of three riders unpacking their gear in the alcove next to him. The party was made up of a young man, a young woman, and an middle-aged man, and Legolas stopped his work to observe their actions, leaning against the nearest pole. He instantly caught the eye of the older man, who limped over towards him with a warm smile on his face. 

" An elf in Minas Tirith, your presence reminds me of forgotten days. What is your name? And what business have you with Gondor?" The man said, offering his hand.

Legolas nodded with a luke-warm smile. " I am Legolas of Ithilien, my business in Gondor is my own." He said quietly, but before he could say anything else or move back to his horse the old man seized his arm, a bright glint coming into his eye.

" You are Legolas of Ithilien! Prince of the elf haven Mirkwood! Forgive any offense I caused, I am Boromir the second, grandson of Faramir, Prince of Ithilien! You travelled with my my great uncle, Boromir the first during the War of The Ring." He cried with surprise.

Legolas smiled and suddenly seemed to recognise the man- in his crinkled face he held the same smile as his mother, and the eyes of his father. 

" It is good to see familiar faces. You look much the same as your father, but you have the smile of your mother." He said, gripping the man's hand.

Boromir turned to the remaining members of his party, calling them forward. " This is my daughter, Simbelmyne." He said, indicating the young woman. She bowed gracefully and as she lifted her head Legolas recognised the face of Eowyn again. 

" It is a pleasure to see the fair face of the White Lady of Rohan has not been forgotten." Legolas said smoothly. The woman smiled and thanked him quietly.

A messenger came running through the doors of the stable, calling Boromir and Simbelmyne to the palace, leaving Legolas with the third rider, who was silently undressing the two horses used by the Boromir and Simbelmyne. Legolas stared at the rider in silence for a moment, not being able to place the familiar feeling he had when seeing the rider.

" I have spoken with you before." He said with certainty to the rider, who was busy unbuckling the saddle of a pale brown horse. 

The rider nodded. " Yes, we have met. It LothLorien."

Legolas smiled and nodded. " I would not forget the sight of an elven blade." He said, pointing to the sword that hung at the hip of the rider.

The rider undressed the last horse in silence and started towards the stable doors. With one hand on the door, the rider turned back to Legolas, finally removing the gold helmet that had blocked Legolas' view of the rider's face, not only in the stables, but in LothLorien. The elf was amazed to see a wave of pale blonde hair tumble down the back of the rider.

" You're a woman." He said in dumb shock.

The rider smiled sarcastically, holding her helmet under her arm. She pulled the blade from it's scarab and held it aloft for Legolas to see. The light glinted off the blade causing silver beams dipping in the intricate engraving of the blade to dance in Legolas' eyes. " About that, you are not mistaken." She said coldly. She replaced the sword on her hip and let the heavy wooden doors of the stable slam shut behind her.

Legolas was left in stupified silence, staring after the woman until he finally roused himself, remembering his counsel with Eldarion.

*

Legolas rushed to the throne room to find Eldarion sitting alone at one of the long wooden tables to one side of the room. No other people entered the room while the prince sat, smoking a long slender pipe and staring into space. He started suddenly when he noticed Legolas coming to sit opposite him.

" Ah, Legolas, you startled me. I saw you come through the gates from your ride atleast two hours ago, what has kept you?" The prince said, setting down his pipe.

" I met a strange party just now in your father's stables. Two men and a young woman, well I thought it was two men, but I was mistaken." He said in confusion.

Eldarion laughed sharply and drew a deep breath through his pipe. " That is an unfortunate mistake to make. Tell me, who where they?" 

" The man was Prince Boromir of Ithilien, and the girl was his daughter, Simbelmyne." Legolas said quietly, trying to recall the name of the third rider, before realising she had not given it to him. He was about to speak again when he noticed the queer look on Eldarion's face. " What is it?"

" How was the Lady Simbelmyne? Did she look well?" Eldarion said slowly.

Legolas inclined and cocked an eyebrow at the prince. " Do you know of her?" 

Eldarion nodded, still puffing at his pipe. " She is to be my Queen." He said, turning his head away. Legolas missed the symbolism of the prince's statement - Aragorn had promised Eldarion that once the prince had found his wife, Aragorn would have no reason to linger. To Eldarion it seemed an ill omen, one he was eager to forget. " What about the third rider? You did not mention who he, or she was."

Legolas laughed lightly and shook his head at the memory of his blunder. " I do not know. When your mother sent word for me in Lorien, this was the messenger who came to me. It was dark, and the rider wore a helmet- I assumed it was a man, for who would send a woman through the forests of LothLorien at night? But just now in the stables, the rider removed her helmet, and I saw my mistake!"

" What did she look like, possibly I know of her, if she is the private messenger of my mother?"

" She looked like the queen Galadriel! She had very long blonde hair. But many of the women of Gondor have this-" Legolas began, but before he could continue, a party arrived in the throne room. Aragorn seated himself on his throne with Arwen beside him, Ardael and Arwelil both stood to the side of the throne, and Simbelmyne and her father were left to stand before the King and Queen. The last to arrive was a pale woman that Legolas recognised- after some analysis- as the rider from the stables. She no longer wore pants an the worn leather tunic he had twice seen her in, but a long, dark blue dress. Her hair was left long and straight, layig flat against her skin and casting a shimmering wave down her back to her waiste. And though she had completely transformed from the rider in the stables, she still wore her sword at her hip. She came to stand before Arwen briefly, before the Queen beckoned the girl to sit at her feet, causing Legolas to furrow his brow in confusion.

He followed Eldarion, who had come to stand before the party, and nudged the prince sharply in the ribs. "That is the rider. Do you know her now?" He hissed.

Eldarion turned to him and smiled strangely. He nodded and gave a queer little laugh. " That is no mere rider. That is the Lady Elessiel Tindomerel. My youngest sister." He said quietly as he moved to the side of Elessiel to kiss her cheek before moving on to greet Boromir and Simbelmyne.

Legolas marvelled at the girl before him, silent with confusion. How could one girl plunge him into uncomprehensible confusion so many times in one day?

*

Legolas woke early on the morning of the day after Eldarion's marriage. It had been two weeks since the party of three riders had arrived in Gondor, and Legolas had neglected his horse since that morning. He was determined today to exercise the animal to make up for the weeks of neglect. He rode the beast hard across the plains for two hours until the clouds over head gathered and opened, pouring fat drops of rain into the kingdom of Gondor. 

Legolas and his horse were completely soaked when they reached the stables, and the elf took the time to dry his faithful companion off before departing. He sung quietly to the horse in elvish as he worked, ignoring the mundain sounds of the stable around him.

" What are you saying to it?"

Legolas was startled by the voice and whipped around to see the youngest daughter of Aragorn leading a pale horse towards him. " It is an old song, from my homeland, about the rains." He said after standing in silence for a moment to regard the girl. 

" Is it elvish?" 

Legolas raised an eyebrow and smirked at the girl. " I am an elf..." He said slowly.

Elessiel's cheeks turned pink as she tried to hide the stupidity of her question with a muttered reply. Legolas took pity on the blunder and offered his hand. " We have not properly met. I am Legolas of Ithilien."

Elessiel gripped Legolas' hand in the traditional greeting for two men, making Legolas laugh quietly under his breath. " I am Elessiel."

" Your brother called you Elessiel Tindomerel. Is that your full name?"

Elessiel blushed again and turned towards her horse. She fiddled with the brush she held in her hand before applying it to the horse's silvery coat. " That is the name my father gave me, after my mother. Tindomerel means 'Twilight daughter' in the language of my mother." She said with confidence.

" I know, I am an elf..." Legolas said again with a kind laugh, he noticed Elessiel's embarrassed frown and moved to change the subject quickly. "This is a beautiful horse. What is her name?" He said, stroking silver-white neck of the horse Elessiel was brushing.

" Her name is Niphredil." 

" That's an interesting name. Why did you name your horse after a flower of the Eldar?"

Elessiel smiled and dropped the brush to the ground. She began braiding the animal's hair. " I didn't. The horse was a gift from the Prince of Rohan, Elfwine the Fair, he gave Nimphredil her name, because she will follow me where ever I go, like the flowers of Luthien. Niphredil is of the line of Shadowfax the great Meadras." She stroked the horse's neck lovingly and smiled at Legolas. 

Legolas returned her smile and suddenly noticed the absence of Elessiel's sword. " Where is your sword. I have passed two weeks in Gondor, and I have seen you wear it always, only at the wedding of your brother did you shed it." 

Elessiel stopped smiling and moved away from Nimphredil towards the doors of the stable, with Legolas following her. " The sword is heavy, but is kept with my almost always, as a gift from my mother."

" The sword of Arwen Undomiel?" Legolas said as they turned the corner from the stables to walk slowly through the citadel to the palace. 

" No, the sword of Queen Galadriel." a quick smile flicked across Elessiel's lips as she saw the look of awe within Legolas' eyes. ".It has ever been the heirloom of her house. And so it is elven, you were correct." Elessiel said.

They reached the courtyard of the palace just as Ardael emerged from the dark corridors that came from the living quarters. She came faster when she saw Legolas and Elessiel walking towards her. 

" Elessiel, father wishes to speak with us." She said solemnly. She turned to Legolas, and dashed quickly at the tears under her eyes. " He wishes to speak with you also."

Eldarion emerged from his father's room just as Legolas reached the door at a run. " What is it? What is wrong with him, Eldarion?" Eldarion shook his head and moved away to his sisters. 

Arwen opened the door of Aragorn's room after a time had passed and summoned Ardael and Arwelil to see their father. After closing the door behind her daughters Arwen moved to Legolas' side, laying a hand delicately on his shoulder. 

" **What is wrong with him?"** Legolas said, gripping Arwen's hand.

She sighed heavily and raised her eyes to meet his own. "** He is dying, Legolas. He will summon you in turn, to speak with him. We have spent the day together, in the Tower of the Guard.**" She turned towards her family. "** And now he will speak of your the future to each of you, for though he has aged, the grace of Numenor burns still within his eyes."**

Legolas nodded silently and wished Gimli could be present. He searched for words to comfort Arwen, but knew none, and seated himself in impatience to wait for his summons. After a time Ardael and Arwelil emerged from the room, their cheeks streaked with tears. They held eachother's hands and seemed content to sink forlornly against the wall opposite Aragorn's door. Arwen moved towards Elessiel, gripping the arm of her youngest daugter, pulling her gently from the arms of Eldarion.

" Come, Elessiel." She murmured, and led the girl into Aragorn's room. They dissapeared into the softly lit confines of the room, and Legolas found himself alone with the heirs of Gondor, buried within their shared grief.

After a time the door of Aragorn's room swung open swiftly, and Elessiel emerged, a look of wild grief upon her face. She looked to her sisters and brother, and when they reached for her hand she pulled away and ran from the corridor, disspearing into the dark halls leading to the courtyard. Legolas stared after her for a moment, curious to imagine what would upset her so, he was interrupted by Arwen taking his hand and leading him into through Aragorn's door.

A warm radiated from the open fire, and lit the room with ghostly shadows which mingled with the shadows of the candle light to caste the minions of Mandos against the king's walls. Legolas knelt on the ground beside Aragorn's bed, and gripped the withered hand of his friend. Aragorn opened his eyes and smiled at Legolas.

" It seems fitting the last face I should look upon before my own death, is that of someone who shall never see the Halls of Mandos." Aragorn murmured. He squeezed Legolas' hand and cackled sharply, causing him to enter into a bout of loud coughing. " I have seen much today, Legolas, and though it has weakened me, I feel it was best, for I have sought to find the lives of my children, and you, my friend, though your future is tied much within theirs."

" What have you seen?" Legolas said quietly.

" At the dawn this morning, I woke to see the creation of Ea, and as the day has grown old, so has the world, for within these hours have passed many ages, and I alone have been granted the sight for all that has been, and some that shall be." He paused and caught his breath. **" For Eldarion, the splendor of Gondor shall increase as though the days of old were once again, and my kingdom shall ever remember his greatness. This I desire wholly. For Ardael and Arwelil, their presence shall bring hope and contentment to the lands of Men. They hold their mother's beauty, and through them the likeness of Arwen Undomiel shall bless the world forever. Their children, henceforth, shall be only daughters, and all shall posess the likeness of Ardael and Arwelil, whose likeness through Arwen was taken first from Luthien Tinuviel herself. But Elessiel shall not share her fate, greater things are written, for she is the likeness of Galadriel."** Aragorn chuckled again, and sighed in contentment as his eyes once again sunk close.

" Whate greater things?" Legolas said curiously, he was beginning to think Elessiel's reaction was not undeserved...

Aragorn opened his eyes again suddenly and pulled Legolas towards him, so their eyes met close and no mistake could be heard from the King's murmured words. " Valinor." He hissed, pushing Legolas back from him, as he sunk back into his pillows.

Legolas stood quickly as he was pushed from Aragorn's side, and marvelled as the world around him seemed to come apart at the seams. The door flung open as Arwen rushed to the side of her husband, embracing his hand against her cheek. Legolas heard Arwen speak quietly in elvish against Aragorn's ear, begging him to remain, if only for a moment. 

Legolas stood in silent aghast as the children of Aragorn came to stand around the sides of his bed, each wearing the same look of forboding depression. The elf felt a tear slide down his cheek as he saw the eyes of Aragorn close for the last time. As though watching the scene from outside his body Legolas heard the sounds of his voice speak elvish farewells as he moved stiffly to comfort Arwen. 

Aragorn the Second, thirty ninth heir of Isildur, sixteenth and final cheiftan of the Dunedain, was dead.


	4. The Watcher on the Stone Wall

Elessiel stood alone on the battlements of the citadel, looking out beyond the night-lit city to the shadowy surrounding plains. Gondor had not changed in the four months since her father's death, the fields remained green, the city remained an image of ivory beauty, and even it's people seemed to continue their lives much the same as they ever had, only under the rule of Eldarion. It seemed to Elessiel sometimes when she saw the faces of those who had been her father's subjects, in a moment of silence, when all around them the world continued to wheel, their faces would turn to stone, and the memory of the loss of Aragorn would resurface and consume the soul entirely. Such was the view of the world Elessiel had found since the day of Aragorn's death. All around her Gondor seemed to be slowly remaking it self under the rule of Eldarion, but Elessiel felt like a beacon of pain. Every moment her heart seemed to turn cold and her grief was indefatigable. She seemed permanently made of stone. And while the grief of the Gondorians seemed to wax and wane on a moment's notice, Elessiel felt consumed by her loss uncertainly, not seeing an end. The world seemed to be falling apart.

First the funeral of her father had passed before her eyes without incident. At first Elessiel had found comfort in the crying of her sisters, though she shed no tears of her own. But as the days grew old her sisters' tears were less, and Elessiel found comfort only in the presence of her mother. It seemed to Elessiel, Arwen sought only her attendance, and the young princess knew her company was the only comfort to her ailing mother. Arwen avoided Eldarion, Ardael, and Arwelil, rarely taking meals with her children. Each day Arwen seemed to disappear further within herself, and it was often at night Elessiel would see her, in the courtyard, after waking in the middle of the night. 

Many nights Elessiel would wake when the moon was still high to find Arwen and Legolas sitting in her father's courtyard, under the splendour of a white tree, speaking in hushed voices in the tongues of their people. Elessiel would never draw to close to the couple, always standing at a distance, hidden by the shadows of the night, content to hear their melodic voices hushing her to sleep, remembering not how she came to find herself each morning, not lying on the cold stone of the courtyard, but in her own bed. 

And each day she would come to the battlements of the citadel, to languish for endless hours in the sterile sun flying over Gondor. She would hear again the voices of her mother and Legolas, speaking in words she could only guess at, for Elessiel had not learnt the language of her mother since she was a small child.

Each morning, as he had since arriving in Gondor, Legolas would ride his horse from the stables, out into the fields. Elessiel would stand and look out on the path Legolas would take, and though she knew it was illogical, her eyes would narrow as she saw him enter back into the city, she would view him suspiciously when seeing him sitting with her mother in the courtyard each night. To Elessiel, Legolas seemed a fate filled enigma; his coming was as the very footsteps of doom. She had come to resent his presence in her family as a counsellor to not only Arwen, but Eldarion, who regularly sought out the company of the elf, something Elessiel viewed as a means of compensation for the loss of a father- for it was Legolas who seemed to best recall the past of Aragorn.

The only morning Elessiel had not watched Legolas' ride from the city on his sparkling horse, was the morning Arwen departed.

Elessiel had slept fitfully the entire night, waking late in the morning with the sun already warm on her face as she walked to her usual place atop the battlements. From the corner of her eye she had seem the glimmer of Legolas' horse accompanied by the guilded white steed of her mother as they came proudly from the stables. 

Elessiel watched them as the horses and their rides moved through the streets of the city strangely un-noticed by the eyes of the Gondorians around them. And as the two riders passed through the arch into the outer-most ring of the city, Elessiel knew it was some last elvish power that granted the usually conspicuous queen of Gondor the ability to move within her people in silence. Suddenly the impulse of panic seized Elessiel, and she flew to the battlements of the citadel, to see the riders emerge from the Great Gates into the emerald green of the fields around the city. All at once the horses broke into a thunderous clamour of speed as they gained distance against the city. Elessiel stood watching in stunned horror as the vision of her mother, a midnight blue flurry of material atop a crystal white horse, accompanied by the pale green of Legolas atop his own grey horse, fled across the plains to the north. At the peak of the furthest hill Elessiel shielded her eyes from the sun to see her mother halt her horse, seemingly waiting for Legolas to catch up. Arwen turned back towards her city, and her youngest child, and for a moment Elessiel didn't need to squint her eyes any more to see the clear face of her mother shining out against the distance. For the first time in four months Elessiel saw her mother's lips peel to reveal the smile loved and treasured so by all who met her. 

Elessiel tried to open her eyes, and realised they were already open -this was no dream- and she heard the voice. The sweet, mellifluous voice of a nighting gale singing in the dusk, speaking clearly in her ear. " **Namarie, sweet Elessiel Tindomerel, until we meet again."** She felt a tear slide down her cheek, and thought it the heaviest ever to be shed, pulled down the smoothness of her skin with the weight of a thousand tears unshed for the loss of her father, and now, for the loss of her mother. 

She looked out across the valley to see her mother remaining atop the hill. For a second Arwen seemed to rethink her departure, but Elessiel knew better than to hope. She saw the pale opal hand of her mother raised once against the sky, and then Arwen Undomiel, fairest of all the children of Iluvatar alone for the last three Ages, vanished into the distance like a whisper of a spent cloud, fleeing after a great rain, never again to be seen by the eyes of men.

*

Legolas sat alone on the stone ledge of the wall surrounding the citadel. From his position he could see the streets below, empty life in the late night, whistling with the pale wind that stole through the city. The elf looked along the wall, guards no longer walked the innermost wall of Gondor as they had during the days of Denethor the second, not since the War of the Ring had guards been needed. And now the absence of average sounds made Legolas all the more aware of the minute pace of someone coming along the wall towards him. He pricked his ears to the sound and turned to the left sharply to see Elessiel coming towards him, up the stairs from the courtyard directly outside her quarters. She was wearing different robes from what she had worn that evening at dinner, and as she came closer Legolas realised with a slight blush they were her bed robes. By the state of her unkempt hair he could tell she had only recently awoken.

Now as Elessiel came to stand but a few feet from Legolas' side, she seemed to not have noticed him. Legolas cleared his throat almost silently, not wanting to break the serenity surrounding their unified solitude. He had felt separate from the youngest daughter of Aragorn and Arwen recently, and could not place the tone with which she spoke when she replied to his sudden noise.

" I see you, do not worry." she said flatly.

Legolas cocked an eyebrow at her dejected tone and pulled himself down from the wall to stand beside Elessiel. " You have changed your pattern of late." He said in encouragement of conversation.

Elessiel turned towards him. " What pattern have I to change?" She said quietly.

Legolas smiled slightly when his eyes met hers. " Each day you stand atop the battlements, not five feet from this place, and watch the city for hours. As though you were waiting for something, or someone to arrive. Yet today you did not come, and for the first time in months I did not see you as I departed the city."

" Maybe I do not wait for someone to arrive, but for someone to depart." She said pointedly. " What business is it of yours to watch me. Why do you remain in Gondor, Gondor has no need for you."

Legolas frowned deeply. " I do not understand."

" Let me speak clearer then, for I could not bare to have you confuse this, my most important statement to you. You have seen the death of my father, and spent a time in mourning, and the departure of my mother, and aided her no less in her flight, what now holds you to Gondor? Why do you stay?" Elessiel said. She fought to keep the hint of desperation from her voice. " What is it that keeps you here?"

" A promise." He said simply.

" To who! What promise could hold an elf among mortals." She cried in disbelief.

Legolas smiled. " You have little faith in elves?"

" Only of late, I've learnt too well they fail to keep the dearest, and strongest of bonds."

" You mean to speak of your mother. I think you do not understand her departure, nor the force that stays my own." He said wisely.

Elessiel scoffed and turned her pained face away from the elf. " I _know_ you do not understand my mind, and hopefully you never will." She sniffed, wiping quickly at her tears. " And what of your promise?"

" You would ask me to tell you my promise?" Legolas said, observing Elessiel's reaction keenly.

She turned to face him, composed and once again of a stony disposition. " I would _command _you to tell me."

Legolas nodded slowly and cast his gaze up to the sky. Far above a fleeting star drove across the sky as though by signal of his speech to come. " Your father made me promise, Elessiel, to guard over your family. To see you each to your destiny, wheresoever it might take you. You know of what I speak, you know of what your father spoke to me, to your family." Legolas paused to note the stunned expression of Elessiel. " For your brother, a wise and prosperous rule over the kingdom of Gondor, for your sisters, happiness, and the promise of eternal beauty through the lives of their daughters-"

" And for me? What did my father tell you for me?" Elessiel said with baited breath. She craved the knowledge that someone else might know what was to come, what words her Aragorn had spoken on his deathbed. 

Legolas paused in his thought and stared at Elessiel for a long moment before answering with calculated precision. " What secrets your future holds are within your mind, something I know nought of. Obviously." He said pointedly. Legolas bowed slightly and turned from the princess to walk along the wall for a pace before stopped and turning back towards her. He was struck dumb for a moment by the sad view that confronted him, of Elessiel Tindomerel weeping closely into her hands against the impenetrable stone walls of the citadel, the moon hanging both high above her head, and threaded a million times through her long, pale hair.

" Elessiel?"

She turned towards him, pulling her hands from her face, no longer making an effort to hide her tears. " Yes, Legolas?"

He took a deep breath and continued, knowing from the sight of her face what he must ask. " When you came just now from your chambers, you were asleep? You woke from a dream, this is correct?"

" Yes. A dream..."

He nodded and moved to continue along the wall. " Then you will leave Gondor tomorrow."

Elessiel looked p sharply at the elf, a deep frown creasing her face. " Yes, I will leave Gondor tomorrow."

***


	5. The Ring of Ulmo

Elessiel raised her teary eyes in silence to the dark sky above her. The moon twinkled above the valley, paiting a perfect picture across the rushing river below. The image of the moon was so strong it seemed to be extended beyond the aesthetic, echoeing up through the spray of the waterfall to dust Elessiel's face in tiny water particles as she dipped her feet into the cool water at the edge of the stream. She brushed the surface of the water with her toes and turned, hearing the singing voices above her echoeing down from the ancient haven she had come to only hours ago. Rivendell, Imladris, in the tongue of her mother's people. 

Elessiel had left her grieving her brothers and sisters to deal alone with their grief, in the glittering city of Gondor, which already seemed to bare more sentimentality for Eldarion, than it did for Aragorn. Elessiel had saddled Niphredil in the early hours of the morning, walking the horse quietly through the streets of Gondor as town began to awake. Few saw the princess leaving that morning, her face hidden under the hood of a dark cloak, the only clue to her indentity was the familiar sight of Niphredil following Elessiel's footsteps. Once, an old man had caught the eye of Elessiel as she passed out of the Great Gates, but the contact melted in a moment, and the old man looked on the space Elessiel and Niphredil occupied as though it were an empty hole, and Elessiel had wondered in that moment whether some enchantment lay upon her flight from Gondor. 

She had ridden hard from the grand etrance of the city, and subconsciously taking the same northward road as her mother had, Elessiel found herself sitting astride Niphredil looking back towards Gondor from the last crest of the fields before the northern lands of Gondor became consumed by forest. She had turned back towards Gondor then, looking at the exact view her mother would have seen, the perfect kingdom of Gondor, marshed among emerald fields, it's white towers and spires glistened in the new sun of the morning, and Elessiel had been astounded at how close the city looked, though it was leagues away. She imagined she could see again the white stone courtyard, and closer still the sandstone battlements, and in the very place where she had spoken made her decision to leave- only hours before- stood a lone figure. 

Elessiel had frowned at the sentinel figure when she realised it's identity. She had stayed for a moment on the crest of the hill, staring blindly at the silouhette of Legolas against the wilted orange of the morning sky, then cursing his presence in the city that she had called home, she spurred Niphredil on, not into the north as she had first intended, but west, hoping that the memories of her bitter conversation with the elf would fade with the falling of the sun.

And now she had seen the moon wax three times in the sky above the old home of her mother's family, and still she cried each night, not only for the loss of her father, but the words he had spoken to her before his death. His commanding voice echoed in her ear, like the never ending lapping of a wave against her psyche.

Elessiel let her bunched skirts fall to her feet as she moved away from the shore of the river, back towards the dim light of the house of Elrohir and Elladan.

She walking slowly up the stairs from the stream, emerging into a circular courtyard that was comprised of a semi-circle of stone thrones facing a single throne, engraved with leaves and flowers. In the middle of the courtyard stood a stone pillar that rose from the ground and reached up to Elessiel's hip. She placed her hand on it and smiled, it was the courtyard of the council, and in her mind Elessiel immediantly saw the faces of Fellowship, seated around the pillar on their stone thrones. Elessiel smiled at the thought of her father, a statuesque figure of nobility and power, pledging his life and the future of his kingdom, to protect the life of a halfling. She sat down in the largest throne, letting her head fall back against the carved back of the seat. Imladris was caught in a perpetual autumn, and now small silver leaves fell like rain from the collosal trees that formed a ring around the coutryard, casting the forest beyond into darkness. Elessiel closed her eyes and let her mind wander away from the thoughts that had so consumed her during her time in Rivendell, and it was some time later when she finally woke with a start. 

The sky above was still dark with the night, but over to the east of the valley the smallest sliver of light spilled out from the mountains, fortelling the distant rise of the sun.

Elessiel stretched her muscles and wondered at her slumber when the sudden sound of a voice propelled her from her seat and into the middle of the ring.

"Sitting in that throne you look too much like your great grandmother, Elessiel Tindomerel." said the voice.

Elessiel spun to see a tall blonde man walking into the circle. He stopped directly in front of the pillar, pressing his hands against the stone top just as Elessiel had done. He avoided Elessiel's inquesitive stare until he had walked from the pillar to sit in the nearest chair. He pressed the tips of his fingers together in front of his chin, as though he were deep in thought while waiting for Elessiel to answer.

" And who are you to speak of the Queen Galadriel?" Elessiel said, trying to hide her alarm at the strange man.

He leaned forward and smiled, a silver glint in his eyes betraying to Elessiel that perhaps he knew more than he let on. " I am the Lord Celeborn." He said finally with much ceremony. " And more importantly, you great grandfather." 

*

Celeborn traced a light step in the soft earth of an old path, leading Elessiel through the towering corridors of trees into the more forgotten areas of the valley-kingdom. " I am sorry for the loss of your mother." He said quietly. They had spoken for many hours, and it was only as the sun grew from behind the mountains into the sky that Celeborn finally mentioned Elessiel's mother.

Elessiel sighed and raised her head to look side-long at the elf beside her. " I thank you, but what of the loss of my father?" She paused and shook her head in frustration, raising a hand when Celeborn moved to answer, " I see would you neglect the loss of a mortal life, but the loss of an immortal, now that is worthy to mourn. All elves are the same-"

"Silence! Never had I heard one my own kin speak so bitterly of elfin kind, you words are ladden with a grief you should not have to bare, but know I feel it also. Arwen Undomiel was the daughter of my child, and Aragorn...where he was a son to Lord Elrond, he was a dear friend to me, and long did our kingdoms prosper in the shared light of peace after the undoing of The Ring. Words for the loss of your father, I have none to share...but I see you do not grieve alone for him any longer. You accept his death." Celeborn said. He stopped Elessiel as they came beside a small stream, and holding her by each arm he stared deep into her eyes. 

" For whom do you blame the departure of Arwen Undomiel?" He asked.

Elessiel turned away and kicked at the dirt beneath her. " I blame no man."

Celeborn laughed lightly. " No man, true, but a soul none the less." He said slowly, staring deep into Elessiel's eyes as though reading their inky depth like a book. " I know of whom you think." He said knowingly.

Elessiel cursed herself for not turning from the elf, but she knew his ability to judge her thoughts would not be hindered by the absence of her eyes. " You know of whom I think? And what would you tell me? What advice would you give to a daughter, who losses the life of a father, only to feel the loss of love from a mother? And if I have found some other responsible for the pain I must endure, what of it? What advice would you give, Lord Celeborn?" Elessiel cried in anger. It was the first time she had admitted out loud she blamed Legolas for Arwen's absence, and it seemed a new layer to her wretchedness.

Celeborn remained silent and still for a moment. Finally he reached for Elessiel's hand, taking it within his own and slowly leading her back along the path they had come along. He remained silent until they reached the main house of Rivendell, and the door to Elessiel's quarters. Here he released his great grand daughter's hand and stood for a moment to regard her, he still marveled at the likeness he saw within her to Galadriel. 

" As a king of elves I have little advice to one so bitter. But as a father who has lost his daughter, and a husband , who is for a hundred years and more without his wife, and finally as someone whose days will not feel the bitter spite of age and death, I would say this. Within you is the ability to heal the hurts of your father's absence, for Lord Elessar the Elf stone was great in his time, and through the lives of his children he is immortal. The fading of Arwen Undomiel was long forseen, and within the minds of the Edain, least of all her children, no acts can be rationalized such as those of a desperate woman seeking relief from the burden of grief. As her daughter, Elessiel Tindomerel, you shall forgive the hurts of your mother, for she is first and foremost of the Eldar, and having this title she is most ill equipt to deal with the sundering of the souls of lovers. Among the histories of all shall the tales of your father and mother endure until the end of days, for few have been that have gained happiness through the union of Eldar and Edain, and your parents number among them. Finally I would speak to you of your hatred to the elven kind. This troubles me much, for you are all the family I have left in the east, save the sons of Elrond, and long shall be the days before I look upon the face of my kin again in the west. Short are the years of the Edain, and shorter still shall be your time with me, and because of this I would give to you a gift worthy of the bearer of the sword you wear, which was first given to my wife as the Guardian of Altariel." Here Celeborn paused and reached within his robes to remove a slender ring to hold before Elessiel.

Elessiel looked in wonder upon the ring, catching her breath as it fell from the hand of Celeborn into her own. She realised it was made entirely of some clear stone, that no metal held the white opaque stone to the band of the ring. " What is this ring?" She said in wonder to her great grandfather.

He smiled, his face illuminated by the cool light the ring caste on all surfaces near to it. " This is the ring of Ulmo, wrought in the smithys of Valimar by Este alone. It first came from the west on the hand of Altariel, given by Olwe to the Lady of Light in the swan havens of Alqualonde. This I will not repeat, but say within grave importance are these words: within the hour of your need, when the world is all in darkness, and none exist that might save you from your plight, this ring shall be smote by the Guardian of Altariel, and within it's light, you, and you alone shall find savior. In the taking of this ring you shall take the name of Altariel, for it was she it first protected, when the light of the Valar still shined for all of Ea." He folded Elessiel's fingers around the ring, staring deep into her eyes. " Wear it in secret, for in secret rings such as these are best kept, Altariel Tindomerel. It has been fortold this ring would come to you, and for my own part I have but one message to impart, though I fear it folly, for never where the kings of the Eldar given power to meddle in the destiny of others, most of all Edain." Elessiel was momentarily consumed by the ring, and looking away from the eys of Celeborn his voice faded within her ears until she thought she heard the lapping of the ocean...

" Altariel!" Celeborn snapped suddenly, gripping her wrist so tightly his knuckles turned a shade of white. When Elessiel met the eys of the elf, they burned with a white hot flame so menacing that she wondered for a moment if the man before her was not some evil enchantment. Then Celeborn turned to each side, as though to check the corridors they stood in, finally he turned to Elessiel, his eyes now more wide, and Elessiel seemed to notice a new strain when he spoke again, in a whisper this time. " With haste, girl, listen! This advice is most important, and though I mourn it's presence in your life, it is of dire importance! Whence you grow to love the Eldar kind, your end shall find you, and though there may be happiness for you in the love of Eldar-folk...as your kin, I would ask you, nay tell you, it is folly to love the elves!" He hissed, releasing Elessiel's wrist finally. He turned again towards the halls on each side, and opening the door of Elessiel's room he kissed her check briefly, looking with sadness and regret into the eyes of his great grand daughter before thrusting her into her room, pulling the door closed behind her. 

Elessiel fell against the door while trying to open it, for she were ceized by a sudden love for Celeborn, and wished only that she could continue her time with him, and speak again of old days as they had when walking through the forests. But the door seemed held closed from the outside by a firm hand, and when it finally was released, and Elessiel flung it open, there was no one there, no sign of her great grand father was left behind until she heard a noise of foots coming from the corridor to her left. Elrohir her uncle emerged first, followed by Elladan his brother, a look of worry on their faces.

"Elessiel, you already awake? Who is with you, for we were in counsel in the library, and heard voices here?" Elrohir asked.

Elessiel stood dumbly for a moment before stepping back into her room. " I...I also heard a voice...I think I would be best to rest..." She said slowly as she closed to door to her uncles.

They smiled warmly in unision. " Dawn sheds light on more than our kingdom. When the sun climbs high, we shall have a council of five, and speak for a length on the subject of your future. Sleep now." They said in perfect, eery unision. 

Elessiel nodded mutely, and closed the door. It seemed seconds later she laid her head against her pillow, and blinked one last time before sleeping.

And then suddenly she was no longer lying in bed, but sitting against cold stone, and opening her eyes she saw the courtyard of the council surrounding her, and the sun riding high in the sky. She stood in a start, and spun twice to make sure her eyes did not deceive her, before running back to her room, calling for Elrohir and Elladan. She found the former standing beside her door.

" It was not a dream..." she said forcefully before turning to Elrohir. " Where is the Lord Celeborn, Uncle? For I wish to speak with him again..."

Elrohir's smile faded into a confused frown as he patted the arm of his neice. " You have had a long night Elessiel. Why have you walked far this night? For until the borders of Imladris you were seen by guards, singing in the twlight, Tindomerel, and treading the paths forgotten by the ages, what troubles you?"

Elessiel shook her head and let her uncle lead her into her room, and sit her down on the edge of her bed. " I did walk...with Lord Celeborn...didn't I?" 

Elrohir smiled again and shook his head. " No other was seen with you. Elessiel, The Lord Celeborn dwells with us no longer."

" But where does he dwell then? For his flight must have been swift during the night, for you to speak of him so?"

Elrohir thought a moment before answering. " He dwells in Cirdan's home, and it many months since we have seen his face in the haven of Imladris, he shall not come again, for his time has come to leave for the West."

Elessiel swallowed hard as she felt her mind swimming, her ears rushing with the sound of the ocean again pressing in against her ears. " He has not come, this night past, to Rivendell?"

" Sleep now, Elessiel, for I fear you have tired yourself. When the sun climbs high, we shall have a council of five, and speak for length...sleep now." His words were the last Elessiel heard before she lost consciousness.

*** 


	6. A Silent Council of Four

It was early morning when Legolas and Gimli came through the wide stone arch that signalled the entrance to Rivendell, and Elessiel was just waking from her peculiar dream, and finding herself in the courtyard of the Fellowship. And although neither knew it, they had missed each other only by seconds when Elessiel had run from the courtyard to her bedroom. Chance, it would have it, was not without a sense of humour, so when Elrohir had found Elessiel sitting on her bed, clasping her head in confusion, he knew already what the following day would hold. A council - as he had told Elessiel in her prophetic dream the night before - of five.

So it was as Legolas and Gimli were warmly welcomed into the house of Elladan and Elrohir that Elessiel was also summoned to her uncles' great library, the messenger telling her not the topic of the summons, but only the time. Midday, when the sun shining down directly into the valley of Rivendell poured golden rays like a waterfall, and left few places where shadows could be kept.

Elessiel quietly thanked the messenger, but was still too confused by her dream to really take in what the elf was saying. She decided a walk would best clear her mind, and slipping out along the terrace of her room, she soon found a narrow path to follow away from the houses of Rivendell, and south through a dense area of the forest parallel to the river. 

The day was beautiful, brightly lit and teeming with energy, but Elessiel was too distracted to bask in the valley's serenity. She felt hot, frustrated, and smothered in discontent. Her vision held not the beauty of the sun-drenched path leading her away from the houses, but the surreal image of Celeborn. His words played over and over in her mind, and the presence of the ring on Elessiel's hand seemed to weigh her down, it was as though the pure, almost white silver were white hot, and burning a circular scar around her finger. 

The forest seemed to grow denser the further Elessiel wandered, and turning back to look into the north, from the direction she had come, she could see only the roofs of the houses of her uncles. The dense canopy of the trees seemed to bend in over the path to form a beautiful natural roof of intertwined branches, of which Elessiel was only dimly aware. Her thoughts spun hither and tither, trying to find a grip in reality, trying in some way she could make sense of all that had happened the night before.

__

It was a dream, she thought with utter certainty. She found herself mentally going over everything that had happened, yet again.

Finding the courtyard where the Fellowship had first pledged their allegiance to Frodo, to protect him, to destroy the One Ring. She had been sitting on the stone throne of Elrond when Celeborn had found her, and she dimly realised that must have been the point at which reality had become surreality, and waking thought the fodder of dreams. Then the memory of the long walk with Celeborn, during which the time had seemed to pass by with a slow motion of a month, instead of the few hours it had been. Elessiel remembered all they had spoken of, but most clear were the advice Celeborn had given before his departure. _It is folly to love the elves..._the words rang in Elessiel's mind in a most strange way, and she found herself wondering at the strange irony of such a statement - for Celeborn had first commented on Elessiel's supposed hatred of all elves. Why then did he speak as though elf kind were endeared to Elessiel? It was a mystery that Elessiel guessed only time could reveal...

And then the gift of the ring. Having come to a small clearing in the forest that the sun did not reach, Elessiel stopped, and sinking blindly to the ground against the ancient statue in the middle of the clearing, she pulled the ring from her finger. When she held it up against the canopy of trees the sun seemed to reach it, though all the forest around her seemed comparatively to grow dimmer. Elessiel held the ring out in front of her face, entranced by it's mysterious beauty. Who had Celeborn said had wrought the ring? Este? And had he said it had been gifted to Ulmo from the master of dreams? _How fitting, _Elessiel thought, _that a ring wrought by the master of dreams, should be given to me in a dream._ And there seemed such comedy in the thought, that Elessiel felt herself laugh. Rolling the ring around in the palm of her hand, Elessiel began to sing softly, knowing not from where the song came, nor what language the words within the melody were spoken in. The tune was as the lapping of waves against a rocky cliff, and the lyrics were whispered, like a voice on the wind... 

She sat so for hours, caught again within the enchantment, not only of Rivendell, but of the Ring of Ulmo, absolved completely from the worries that had accumulated over the previous months, and the previous night more importantly, for the first time in an age.

And all the while Elrohir and Elladan sat waiting with Gimli and Legolas in the great library, in silence waiting for the fifth person, Elessiel, to arrive. But she did not come.

Some time before the dusk was rumoured to arrive Gimli begged leave of the elves, and said he would favour a walk in the forest for a time. He marvelled at the beauty of Rivendell, feeling a strong affection for the should-be-alien elfish architecture that surrounded him. Walking in marvel through the carved arches and passages of Rivendell's homes, he found himself at the forest door. 

Three paths stood before him, one north, to the base of the waterfall that slowed the course of the river as it ran through Rivendell. This path veered off up a well-trod path, lit by bright lamps, even during the day, and Gimli could hear the far-off rumble of water from that direction. The second path walked it's way slowly, winding here and there to the shore of the river, and then on over to the other side of the valley via an ancient bridge. This path also was lit with the light of lamps, and though the path looked more enticing for it's labyrinthine qualities, he chose the third path. A less worn track lit sparsely, and dimly, but all the more interesting for the separate direction it took, away to the south where none lived, and few ever walked.

Finding himself under a woven canopy of leaves along the track, Gimli calmed finally. It had been a long journey from Gondor, where he had arrived only two weeks ago from the Glittering Caves. At first Gimli had been sorely resentful of Legolas asking him to leave for Rivendell so soon, but a gift from Eldarion changed his mind. It was a letter from Aragorn, written in the dwarfish text of which even Legolas knew little. The contents had been mixed. A lamentation by Aragorn for passing before he could see Gimli, and a prediction - as he had offered all his family - of the future. Love, Aragorn had written. Gimli would develop a 'deep and enlightening love', as Aragorn put it. Gimli had kept the letter beside his heart on their journey from Gondor, there was something about the tone of Aragorn's words, as though his friend were almost mocking him. That night - his last in Gondor - Gimli had dreamt of the Lord Celeborn. The elf had been standing in a silver forest, holding aloft the hand of a young woman whose face was obscured, and from the moment he had woken, Gimli had felt a strange sense of expectancy in his destination. He knew something amazing would come of his time in Rivendell, and although he did not know what exactly, the sneaking suspicion that it would be good was enough to propel him towards the elvenhome.

The one peculiar feature of his journey across Middle-earth to Rivendell in the northwest was Legolas' behaviour. The dwarf and the elf had travelled far together in previous years, and their adverse origins had not hampered the development of their friendship, and Gimli prided himself on the fact that he could determine Legolas' feelings at any time. But lately the elf had been...different, closed even. Along the journey to Rivendell, Legolas had acted as though he were tracking someone. 

It had begun on the morning the two departed from Minas Tirith. Instead of travelling straight into the west, along the main road from Minas Tirith, Legolas rode out of the city towards the north. Gimli had almost considered his friend insane when the elf had stopped at the last hill from which a traveller could see the White City, then turning in each direction as though looking for something, or someone, he had spurred the horse he shared with Gimli on into the west. The path they travelled after that was haphazard and random to say the least. They picked their way across the country through conditions that often bordered on life threatening. 

But eventually they had found their way to the forest within which Rivendell was hidden, and so into the counsel of Elladan and Elrohir. Gimli had been surprised to learn the twin sons of Elrond had not yet abandoned their father's home, and the prospect of counsel with them had been enticing, for there is much to be discussed when old friends meet again. So for hours they had sat in the library, talking of old days and people of the past, but Gimli had received the impression that his elven companions were constantly waiting for something. For what he did not know, but they seemed on edge, glancing often towards the doors, and out the windows of the library to the valley below. It had so for more than four hours, until Gimli cared not for discussion, and wanted only to walk the old paths of an old elvenhome, as he had so many times before.

But now walking along the disused path he had chosen Gimli found his way to a most distant area of the valley, and turning a sharp corner in the dim path he heard a sweet sound drifting down the track to him from beyond. The dwarf stopped, and turning this way and that into the forest he looked for the familiar white glow that only the mind could see that indicated the presence of an elf maiden. It was almost as though he expected to see Melian herself walking towards him from further down the path. But when no one approached, Gimli took up his pace again, turning each bend in the path with curious suspicion. Finally the path widened out into a small clearing, floored with soft, long grass and roofed with the branches of the trees that ringed the clearing. The branches overhead had completely formed a canopy, twisting together like silver snakes to make a roof just thin enough for the light of dusk to slip through in parts, but leave other patches of grass completely shadowed. In the middle of the clearing was an extremely old statue of a young woman, standing with head lowered and hands clasped as though in mourning. The statue seemed not to dominate the dell, but to blend naturally into the surroundings. It was as though the stone woman was bound to the environment, a mere thread in the natural tapestry. Gimli was so confused by his location; he almost took the sweet sound of song to be coming from the stone lips of the statue, until he noticed the young girl sitting by the stone woman's feet.

She was dressed in dark blue, her long hair seemed so pale a shade of blonde to almost be white, and her skin all the paler from the contrast of the dark material of her clothing. Her face was turned away, and her hands clasped something to her chest which Gimli could not see. He feared that should he take a step closer the sweet sound of her voice would cease, but he could not stay idle at the distance he was.

Gingerly he stepped from the confines of the path into the clearing and slowly to the side of the girl. Slowly the girl stopped her song and turned her face towards Gimli, who caught his breath at the sight before him. _Galadriel..._" The Lady of Light!" He cried with quiet alarm. _But it could not be_..." I must be dreaming...but it is a sweet dream, for I thought you had departed!" He said quickly. The girl stood now, and turning herself fully towards the dwarf in confusion, she opened her mouth to speak, but Gimli beat her to it. " But you are no elf! What evil sorcery is this that would bring a sprite such as yourself to Imladris, for you are no elf!" He cried in alarm, stumbling backwards.

Elessiel shook her head and took a step towards the dwarf, wondering at his nonsensical babble. " No I am no elf, nor a sprite. But you seem to know me all the same, just now when you called to me by the name of Lady of Light. What errands have you among elves?"

" I am Gimli, son of Gloin, and Master of the Glittering Caves under the Hornburg." He said with pride. " Your face is such a semblance to the Lady Galadriel, I wondered for a moment if I was still sleeping in the library, but it is not so."

Elessiel cocked an eyebrow at Gimli's words, she knew of him now, knew his connection to her father, and knowing now his identity she was reminded of the summons to the library. With haste she smiled politely and walked past Gimli towards the path, maybe if she hurried she could meet her uncles as they left the house for their evening walk. 

" Have I offended you in some way, Lady?" Gimli called. Elessiel stopped and turned for a moment. " I would not have you take offence at my words, for those who take offence at being named a semblance to the Queen Galadriel would not know their foolishness. But please, do stay and speak with me."

Elessiel smiled and moved closer to the dwarf. It was hard to believe he was a companion of Legolas - how such a kind, sweet creature could have come into the friendship of the cold, meddling elf Elessiel did not know. " What would you have me speak to you of, Master Gimli?" She laughed.

Gimli smiled graciously and bowed slightly. " That song you sing, I would have you speak to me of such things; for it is long since I have heard it. Tell me, fair Lady, where would a maid such as yourself learn the words to a song so sweet?" There was a tone of wonder in the his voice.

Elessiel shrugged uncomfortably, unable to rid herself of the knowledge that she would see Legolas again. " I am not sure." She murmured, aware for the first time that she couldn't place the origin of the song. It had been years since Arwen had stopped speaking to Elessiel in the speech of the elves. Yet here was a song composed entirely in elfish, and not only the lyric, but the melody seemed so familiar that the fact that Elessiel didn't know the translation for any of the words seemed impossible. " Please, excuse me."

Gimli bowed again. " May I ask but one favour, My Lady?" He said quietly.

Elessiel turned and smiled warmly. Each moment she spent in the company of the bashful dwarf endeared him more to her. " What would a Master among dwarves ask a maid among humans?"

" For a name, by which to sing a song concerning one so fair." He said humbly.

Elessiel blushed at his sweet words and cleared her throat. " Your fair words win your argument, Master Gimli." She paused for a moment, as Celeborn's words rang through her mind like the echo of a bell. _You shall take the name of Altariel..._but for some reason she could not bring herself to speak those words, to use the name which Celeborn had given her, not yet. "Elessiel Tindomerel."

A smile spread across the lips of Gimli when he heard the sweet voice of the maid before him speak those two beautiful words. _Elessiel Tindomerel_, _Twilight Maiden._ It was such a fitting name Gimli almost laughed at the simplicity of it. He was quite suddenly gripped by the conviction that this may have been the love Aragorn had written about, for even as Gimli stood up straight to meet the curious stare of Elessiel he was aware of the affection he felt for her. To protect her from danger, and ensure her happiness, with such an affection as though she was not a barely introduced stranger, but a dear friend. But his thoughts were interrupted by the soft sound of footsteps coming down the path, and although the noise was barely more than that of a distant breath, he knew instantly the identity of the person to which the step belonged. 

Elessiel frowned in curiosity at the queer look that Gimli portrayed, staring not at Elessiel, but over her shoulder. In a moment that seemed to last and eternity she turned slowly, and almost stumbled when she saw the person whom Gimli had been staring at.

" Elessiel." A face with twinkling, superior eyes confronted Elessiel. A smile beguiling it's owner shared some knowledge with Elessiel, but still kept many secrets.

" Legolas."

***


	7. Out of the Darkness

" Do you know the stone woman of that statue?"

Elessiel turned at the voice and frowned at its owner - Legolas. _Why does he always seem to appear at the most unexpected times?_ " No. I do not." She replied shortly.

Legolas smiled and moved towards the stone seat where Elessiel was sitting. Sitting there, sheltered from the light of day she looked strangely different from the first day Legolas had found her, standing with Gimli in that very same clearing. And in many ways, she looked exactly the same, though it had been so many weeks since that first meeting. Somehow, unnoticed by the turning of the days, her behaviour, her entire demeanour, had changed. Legolas could hold out the memory of his meeting with Elessiel in the stables of Minas Tirith. He remembered acutely the look of her eyes, the emotion in her face. But the woman before him seemed a stranger to that girl he had met so long ago, tending her horse and asking him the silly questions to which the answer was obvious. Her eyes were different now; a queer feeling came over Legolas when their eyes met. As though Elessiel knew something she did not share, as though in the brief moments when she let herself meet his gaze, her eyes saw more than his face, more than his mind. It was almost as though she saw his intentions. And it had recently come to the point where Legolas often feared to think when Elessiel stared too long at him. He felt separated from his deepest thoughts and secrets when in the presence of the girl, for her behaviour only served to confirm the idea that she had aged in some mysterious way. And when she was alone - or thought she was - it was not uncommon to hear her singing, but no Common Speech was melded with her tunes, instead languages of old that none now spoke on the shores of Middle-earth. 

When Legolas had first caught her singing so it had been in this same clearing, sitting with Gimli. Legolas had heard the song from a way down the path, and following it he had expected to find an elf belonging to the ghostly voice, but instead it had been Elessiel. Just as Legolas had rounded the last turn in the path that would reveal his presence to Gimli and Elessiel, he had stopped, sensing a sort of solitude between the dwarf and the human that he did not wish to harm.

Many times it had been so between Gimli and Elessiel. At first Legolas had viewed the unlikely friendship between Gimli and Elessiel as a means by which he might be drawn into Elessiel's confidence, to gain her trust, but it had not been so. Many times Legolas and Gimli had sat in the afternoon, smoking the long carved pipe which had long ago been a gift from Aragorn, and speaking on many topics. Most often of all their conversation had turned towards Elessiel and her relationship with Gimli.

" You're in love with her." Legolas had laughed, sucking deeply on the pipe.

Gimli had not laughed, but nodded seriously. " Ai, I am. Her father predicted it, and so it is." He said gravely, looking out in thought over the beautiful valley of Rivendell.

Legolas had not expected such a grave answer, and still suspected his friend of playing a joke. " And where would you live? An old dwarf and a beautiful human maid. What home would you offer her?" He had spluttered.

Gimli had turned sharply to stare with a shrewd gaze at his friend. He nodded slowly, his tone serious. " Ai, she is beautiful, and how curious that you would notice. And the love I have for her does run deeper than any mine." He said, tapping the tips of his fingers against his chin as oft he did when thinking over some curious detail. 

" Curious?" Legolas had said, cocking an eyebrow. " You certainly have you secrets Gimli, the two of you have become inseparable, and I keenly await the day your 'deep love' turns to deep lust-"

" Do not be such a fool Legolas." Gimli had snapped. At this point he stood quickly and began to walk away, before turning at the edge of the balcony and facing Legolas once more had said, " It has been said of elves that they understand the ways of the heart the best of all the children of Iluvatar. But you need never fear that being said of you, my friend." Yes, I do love the Lady Elessiel Tindomerel, and would protect her to the end of my days, though she may never need protecting, the Valar rest her soul, who would harm the precious child? I will care for her where I could not do so for her likeness, for too many years have passed since I looked upon that fair face." Here Gimli's face seemed to glow a moment with the memory of She who he recalled - Galadriel. " And so, friend Legolas, we have become inseparable, and seeing this between myself, 'an old dwarf', and Elessiel ' a beautiful human maid' would you begrudge such an unlikely alliance?" He cocked an eyebrow in question.

Legolas stood and shook his head; no laughter hinted his voice when he responded. " No Gimli, I am sorry for my jokes. You are right, I do not understand it, though the chance would be a fine thing."

Gimli smiled knowingly and nodded in consent. " You could learn much from that girl. She is wise beyond her years and maybe even a little beyond yours."

Legolas opened his mouth to rebut, but Gimli was already gone. Disappearing down the southern track to the clearing where each evening he would sit with Elessiel and conduct their private counsel...

" Legolas?" Elessiel said slowly. 

The elf's head snapped back to face her as he blinked hard to free himself from the daydream he had been in. " I am sorry, where was I?"

" That is what I would like to know." Elessiel muttered, but Legolas did not catch her words. Instead he saw her pull her shawl around her shoulders and move quietly through the long grass to stand before the stone woman. " Who is she?" 

Legolas came to stand beside Elessiel. " Her name was Gilraen. The mother of Aragorn the second, the Elfstone, your father." Legolas turned to Elessiel to gauge her reaction to his words, but was met with a smooth silence.

Outwardly Elessiel remained passive, but inside her mind was screaming. Her throat felt thick, and her mind reeled at the realisation that the stone woman - who she had spent so much time standing before - was her grandmother. She had always wondered at the absence of her grandmother, Gilraen, from her father's life, and during the few times she had broached the topic with her mother Arwen had said little more than " let the spirits of those who pass in pain rest". And from her father she could glean few words other than mumbled darkness, from which Elessiel could ascertain the subject of Gilraen was a deep pain to Aragorn. It had been during the final hours of Aragorn's life, when all his family and friends were gathered outside his bedroom, awaiting their summons, that Aragorn had finally addressed the subject of Gilraen in more than whispers. 

He had taken Elessiel's hand within his own, cold and pale hands, and looking deep into her eyes he had said " I have given hope to Gondor, but kept little for myself", words which Elessiel had not known the significance of until Arwen had explained them to her.

But now Elessiel understood the familiar, pained expression of the stone woman, and almost imagined a familiar feature or two between the woman and her father. 

" Elessiel, do you know the story of Gilraen?" Legolas spoke cautiously, knowing from times in the past that the chance to impart even the most trivial piece of knowledge upon Elessiel was a fickle opportunity - she was likely to close herself up to him at the slightest provocation.

But she did not turn away, or greet his words with a pithy retort, and winding her shawl further around her arms - though the night was habitually warm - she shook her head. " Would you tell it to me?"

Legolas smiled slightly and nodded. " She was a great woman among her people, and a worthy wife to Arathorn, your grandfather. She bore him only Aragorn, for the life within your father was stronger than that of many children. She was fair, beautiful even among elves, and as fate would have it, it was among elves that she spent the greater part of her life.

When Arathorn died defending the birthright of the Dunadain, it was to Imladris that Gilraen brought her boy child, Aragorn. For many years had Master Elrond been keeper and guardian of the heirs of Isildur, as the blood of that great line flowed through the veins of those who were is brother's children, many times removed. 

In the safety of Imladris did your father grow, and learning the law of the elves became wise even among the elders of his small people. Ever did Gilraen care for him, and giving her whole she sacrificed the warmth and safety of her own people in the north so she might be with her child among strangers, among elves. Many years passed, more than your own lifetime before Aragorn was away frequently, for in the Rangers he saw brotherhood, and hope for the people of Middle earth. Gilraen was left amongst the elves, though not begrudging her son the chance to fulfil his destiny, but she became lonely. And then, in time, and only after she had known your father would be safe - having met his future bride, Arwen Undomiel, though that is another story - she departed, and went for the last time of her life to live among her kin in the north. And passing out of Rivendell the elves did feel a loss, for though she was of Edain, and being so only a brief moment in the lives of elves, she had brought much happiness and peace to the peoples of Rivendell. She was the forbearer of the King, and in being so no sin can be said about her.

In her stead were left few words, as little she had spoken in life, and little she would speak in death. But those that were left spoke a truth which none could deny. Sad, tragic, but all the more beautiful for the shared knowledge that all that she said was truth. 'I have given hope to all, but kept little hope for myself'." Legolas sighed heavily and turned towards the statue. He pointed to the feet of the woman. Elessiel followed his point and saw the thinly engraved words below Gilraen's feet. " And so those words stand still, to show the sacrifice your grandmother made and the debt in which all of Middle earth stands to her."

Elessiel felt warm tears sliding down her cheeks as she turned from the statue to face Legolas. Only a few times since his arrival had she let herself meet his eyes, but now she willingly entered into their depth. " That was beautiful." She said quietly. " You speak beautifully."

Legolas barely lowered his head in response, not wanting to break the silent, revolutionary bond that held his eyes to Elessiel's. Again he felt the churning, soft anxiety that something within her eyes was different, but presently she spoke again, knocking the thought from his mind.

" Where is Master Gimli?" 

Legolas blinked dumbly for a moment before answering. " He sent word by me. I was to say he was sorry, and regretted the breaking of your counsel, but he was invited to the smithys across the river, and could not neglect the chance to master the elves in a show of smithery." Legolas laughed to cover the awkward silence that followed his statement. It seemed in the brief contact of their eyes something had been shared that should not, and now their being alone together in the almost mystical glade of Gilraen was pressured, forced.

Elessiel gave a laugh matched in force to Legolas'. " An understandable choice, knowing Gimli."

" You have become close to him." Legolas said seriously.

Elessiel nodded, and once again the undertones of their eased conversation seemed to soothe the anxiety of their shared solitude. "He is both as a father and a dear friend to me." She smiled and moved to walk past Legolas to the beginning of the track, which would lead back to the houses. " I thank you for the message, but if Gimli's counsel is denied me this evening, it is as good a chance as offered to explore the paths of the valley I have neglected since your arrival with Gimli."

"Wait one moment!" Legolas said quickly. 

Elessiel stopped and turned to give Legolas a most curious stare. "What is it?"

" Gimli tells me I would not understand the friendship between a dwarf and a human woman, but I think such a bond between an elf and a woman would be a more familiar scape to see."

" I do not understand you." Elessiel said slowly. 

Legolas smiled and took a step towards Elessiel's side. " Nor I you. All the more reason for you to show me the paths of which you speak. It has been to many days for you since walking them, and to many years for me. So may I join you?"

Elessiel nodded mutely and walking up the track slowly she keenly felt the stare of Legolas upon her back. 

And while both elf and human were so consumed by their anxiety in sharing their company for the first time not by chance, but by choice, that they failed to noticed the change in the statue of Gilraen. A small tear, barely noticeable to the naked eye slid down her cheek, and her cold lips twisted ever so slightly into a small smile. 

They found a sparse dim corner of the valley where the trees grew widely, and the forest floor was littered with millions of tiny, silver leaves. For the most part they had walked in silence, at first not knowing the words which they could speak that would ease the tumbling feeling both Elessiel and Legolas felt brewing inside themselves.

When finally even silence had grown weary Legolas brazenly broached the subject he had most thought about in the evenings since coming to Rivendell, " What does Gimli speak to you about? You spend hours together, and never once has he told me of what you speak."

Elessiel smiled softly and tried to think of an answer. The truth was that often Gimli and herself did not speak, but simply sat in silence and enjoyed the beauty of Rivendell. But she could not tell Legolas that, she was not nearly brave enough to share such a private act. Instead she tried to summarise the conversations between herself and the dwarf, " Many hours he spent telling me the story of his father's life, and some time on his own. One evening he spoke to me of his father's involvement in the destruction of Smaug. He speaks sometimes of the places he has been, and the things he has learnt. He has taught me many songs and tales of the past, and once spoke to me of Galadriel. He told me I was created in her image." At the final sentence she effected a Gimli-like accent, and laughed at the comment the dwarf had made.

Legolas laughed also, and though he felt they had again reached a soft part of the conversation, he wondered if Elessiel's tone would turn again, when she would close herself to him, as she inevitably did. " And do you speak to him about?" He asked

Elessiel shrugged and said, " Many nights I have confided in him the worries I would tell no other." She stopped for a moment and turned completely to Legolas, seizing his arm.

Legolas frowned at the almost desperate look in her eyes when she said, " Something is changed in me, some power I do not understand, but feel none the less. I know my uncles see it, and Gimli agrees with me. Do you see it also?"

" Ai." Legolas croaked. Suddenly his voice felt thick, and his heart raced with the unexpected combination of Elessiel's truthfulness and her hand on his arm. " I have noticed the change." Without knowing how it had got there Legolas felt the smooth skin of Elessiel's cheek against his palm. 

Elessiel felt her head tilt into Legolas' hand as she closed her eyes. " Why did you come to Rivendell?" She murmured.

Legolas frowned and bit his lip, knowing the answer to her question could mean the end of their contact, something he could not presently conceive. " I came to find you."

Elessiel opened her eyes, and Legolas felt the flow of blood in his veins quicken. " What holds you to me, Legolas? What promise have you made than brings you across leagues to find a mere womas?"

" You are no 'mere woman', Elessiel," he said thickly. Elessiel blushed and looked away, but Legolas continued, seeing the opportunity to purge himself of words he had carried with him since coming to find Elessiel. " I could ask the same of you, what drove you to Rivendell, the home of elves - who you so obviously dislike - from the home of your family?"

Elessiel turned away from Legolas, and he felt the loss of her touch acutely. " Oh Legolas," she sighed sadly, shaking her head, " I do not hate elves." And as she spoke those words she noticed for the first time that she did not - and had not - hated elves for a long time.

" But you hate me." He blurted, knowing not from where the words came.

Elessiel turned to face him, and felt guilt not the first time at having behaved so childishly towards the elf. _How must I look in his eyes? I am a woman, yet as a child to one so old, so wise..._ " You must think me a child for my behaviour, running from Gondor the way I did. But I could not be there, seeing you walking among my family, as though you were one of us, yet acting in your own time as though you were above us."

"I never meant to behave so. Your father asked that I would mind his family after his departure, and this is what I have strived to do."

" But my mother...you did not stop her from leaving. You just...let her go." Elessiel said helplessly.

Legolas shook his head sadly and said, " Long before my words told her so, it was known to Arwen Undomiel that she would leave the faces of her children, and the kingdom of her husband, to return to the lands she once called home, so many years ago. You must understand, Elessiel, that Arwen Undomiel was more than just your mother, her life started long before your own, but as such your presence did define her existence for a time. But with the absence of a husband, and his memory within the faces of her children, she knew she must leave."

Elessiel remained silent for a moment, trying to muster the courage to say the words that had lay silent on her lips since Legolas had come to Rivendell. " She has gone."

" Yes." Legolas said heavily. He felt the need to offer some small comfort to Elessiel, coming from the subconscious want mirrored in Gimli to protect the woman from pain or grief. " Do not mourn her more than you have done so Elessiel, my heart tells me you may yet meet again beyond the end of your days."

Elessiel nodded quickly, wiping the fresh tears from her eyes and Legolas could tell he should say no more on the subject. He bit his lip in silence for a moment, frowning with indecision over his next comment. " Was I the only reason you left Gondor?"

" I do not think so. On some level I think it has long been expected that I would not tarry in Minas Tirith till the end of my days found me unfulfilled. I fear that makes no sense..."

Legolas waved her statement away, saying " your fears are unfounded. Why then did you leave?"

Elessiel shrugged, and turned slowly in a wide circle, indicating the forest around her. " I left for this. My father said..." her eyes clouded over with foreboding as to whether she should tell Legolas the topic of her father's last summons. "...He said when I was only a child I would be destined for great things. He used to call me his gift, and said that my birth was designed by some greater creature as a weapon against darkness and evil. He used to call me 'elven fair'. It is the first name I remember him giving me. He said I was special, being pale of hair and skin where Ardael, Arwelil and Eldarion were so dark." She sighed heavily and smiled bitterly at Legolas. " I wish I could believe him. I wish I could find my greater purpose." Her smile faded as she turned from Legolas.

He took a step towards her, and taking her hand in his own he whispered, "How do you expect to find your greater purpose hiding in the shadows, Elessiel. You came to Rivendell to escape the world, and in twilight now you've existed for too many months. It is time for you to see the light of day."

She turned, and suddenly noticed how close Legolas was standing to her. She could almost smell his skin, and the grip of his hand around hers was as a white-hot burn. And meeting Legolas' eyes Elessiel fell instantly into their sapphire depth, barely hearing her voice above the rush of her heart beat echoing in her ears. " Maybe you are right, it is time for me to leave the shadows..." She murmured. 

Legolas stepped infinitesimally closer, drawing her deeper into his gaze. " Elessiel..." 

They stood so close their faces almost touched as Elessiel raised her hand to touch the smooth skin of his face. Something fell from her pocket, hitting the ground with a soft _clink _that Legolas ignored. Elessiel tore her eyes from his, and staring at the ground between her feet she saw the ring of Ulmo glistening softly in it's own light, independent as ever of natural starlight. 

Legolas tilted Elessiel's chin up, their eyes meeting once again. " Is this a dream?" He asked softly. He had not expected an answer.

Elessiel's face closed instantly, and she tore herself away from Legolas' arms, stooping quickly to pick up the ring and tuck it back into her sleeve. _It must have escaped when I touched his face..._ She moved slowly away for the elf, but did not avoid his gaze.

__

It is folly to love the elves! The words replayed in her head a million times, drowning out the emotion of the moment, and leaving only her own self-resolve, and Legolas' bewildered stare.

" Is something wrong? Elessiel?" He said in confusion, but the answer was obvious. " Is it because I am your father's friend, or because I am your guardian?" He said blindly. 

But Elessiel could not understand how he could miss the nexus of her refusal entirely. " It is folly to love the elves." She replied simply with a helpless shrug. 

Legolas frowned and cocked his head in confusion as Elessiel stood watching him, understanding refusing to unfurl within his mind. 

Finally after what seemed a lifetime, Elessiel stepped forward and tenderly kissed Legolas' cheek. " Thank you for walking with me this evening. I hope it is not the last time I see you so." She said quietly before turning to walk away down the path, back towards the houses with their ghostly, twinkling lights.

" This will be the last time." Legolas called after her.

Elessiel stopped, but did not turn around. 

" Gimli and I will be gone before the dawn." 

Elessiel turned and bit her lip, frowning deeply. " What drives you so?"

Legolas shrugged, a strange satisfaction coming from seeing Elessiel's anxiety over his departure. " My quest in coming to Imladris, Elessiel Tindomerel, was to bring you back into the light, a task to which I know now you shall rise. And so my task here being done, I will leave Rivendell once more as a mere messenger." He bowed low, but through all his words his eyes stayed locked with Elessiel's, before he turned and walked away down the path.

Elessiel stood for a moment, watching the receding shape of Legolas as he walked briskly away from her. She felt she could not properly grasp all that had changed between them and wanted nothing more than to push him from her heart. Neither in favour, nor in ill did she wish to think of Legolas, _it is folly to love the elves._ But as she saw the last of his shadow turn away down the path she dimly felt her own farewell escape her lips, " You are no mere messenger. Namarie, Legolas."


	8. A Path lost in the Golden City

The sky was still grey in the morning when Legolas and Gimli saddled their horse to depart. None were present except Elrohir and Elladan, who were sad to see their friends departing so soon.

" It is a bitter day, when friends who have so recently been rediscovered must be forgotten again." Elrohir said with a soft smile as Legolas finished packing the horse.

" Ai, but forgotten only in body, never in mind." Legolas said. He tapped his temple and winked.

The elf and dwarf hugged their hosts warmly; as was custom between close friends, and mounted their horse, riding from the gates of Rivendell slowly so they might enjoy a last look at the picturesque valley. But Gimli could tell something troubled Legolas, though he did not have the cause to say anything until they were clear into the forest surrounding Rivendell, and travelling at a good pace down the trail.

" What troubles you, Legolas? How could such a fair place inspire such a bitter face?" Gimli said.

Legolas sighed heavily. " I feel a fool, Gimli. And miss the farewell of Elessiel on our departure. Last night held many revelations in your absence. And you did not say farewell to her, you must mourn this?" Legolas said, turning the topic artfully away from himself.

Gimli shook his head. " I did look once more upon the fair face of that woman before departing, in the wee hours of this morning. As for yourself, her departure could not be helped. I would think this a victory for you, Guardian of the house of Aragorn that she heeded your advice to leave."

Legolas was shocked into to momentary silence. " Leave? _Her _departure? What tongues do you speak in Dwarf?"

Gimli smiled, suddenly realising the hidden meaning to the words Elessiel had shared with on their farewell, _it is folly to love the elves_, she had said, and Gimli understood now. Elessiel knew first hand.

" No tongues my friend, but knowledge you do not know, so listen carefully. The Lady Elessiel Tindomerel did depart this morning, but a league in time before our own leave was taken. And so a goodbye was shared between the old dwarf and the young, beautiful human maiden. What think you of that, friend elf?" Gimli said with haughty pride.

Legolas remained mute until the sun was high in the sky; brewing deep within his heart the questions left unanswered by Elessiel.

*

Elessiel smiled widely as she came atop the last hill of the road she had been travelling on for well near three weeks. Before her a wide expanse of lush green land carpeted the earth to the horizon, and the sky above was as a transparent blue crystal, save the occasional cloud which offered no rain, nor dampening to her high spirits. She gratefully acknowledged her journey was coming to an end as she raced down the hill, noting with slight regret the absence of a saddle on her horse.

But this had been part of the journey. Leaving Rivendell in the quiet of night, binding all that saw her to secrecy. She had simply climbed onto Niphredil, bear back, and with bare feet, she had ridden from the gates of Rivendell in silence, letting the road itself decide the best route. It had been an experience to bring her from the dream like state of Rivendell, back to reality.

__

Reality, she thought with relish as she noted the first glimmer of a tower on the horizon. This sparkle in the south was the first real sign of her quarry, a city from which she had too long been absent, friends which she had left behind so long ago. 

She quickened the pace of her horse in anticipation of her arrival. 


	9. Leading to the North

Chapter Nine

Middle earth had been on the doorstep of winter when Elessiel and Legolas had parted their separate ways from Rivendell, and now in the fullness of time, winter seemed like a forgotten memory, ushered to the side as spring announced it's triumphant arrival to all the lands of Middle earth. Undulating hills and valleys sparkled with the lush green of a polished emerald, and the sky overhead bloomed a bright and welcoming blue. Old stone and tree seemed to come to life with the bringing of light, warmth, and inherent prosperity that spring heralded, and for none was this more true than the people of Rohan.

Within the kingdom of the horse-lords the faces of all folk shone with a new prosperity. Their farms and families prospered from the highest lord to the lowest peasant, for all shared in the glorious news that had only recently come to ripeness - King Eomer had been married! Three months had passed since the wedding of Eomer and his bride, and though their arrangements had been hasty - for it was known wide the sudden arrival of the Queen, and without consort or guard - their union had lain a cover of contentment over the kingdom, for more than little of late had the people of Rohan worried their king would find no bride. He had courted, the people would say in hushed tones in the marketplace, not further than a year ago, but the maid had disappeared, leaving no trace of their destination with family nor friend, or if they in Gondor, where her family did dwell, they would not share her new location. The Princess Elessiel, they would say with distaste, had done their king a sore wound. 

But little did the memory of pain weigh on their minds when they saw the face of their Queen. Fair she was, and tall as the Kings of Old, from whose race she was directly descended. Her hair bloomed gold and woven silver in the sun, and with her ivory skin she stood proud upon the door of Meduseld, her face glowing like the full blown moon, and her eyes twinkling like stars trapped forever within the inky depth of her eyes. And although she shared not the race of shield maiden, nor bore any resemblance beyond a fair visage, she was called The White Lady of Rohan, a blending of her likeness to the memory of Eowyn of Ithilien, and her own name, which meant in the Fair Tongue, Lady of Light. For Altariel, she called herself, and coming to Rohan on the bear back of a horse in the fullness of an autumn day, she had won the heart of Eomer within the space of a moment. And Eomer looked on his wife with love, forgetting all membrane of the Princess Elessiel, except for when they were alone - or so the wives to the royal stewards would say - when the king would smile knowingly at his bride, and call her Tindomerel.

Forgiving her mystery, the people of Rohan loved their Queen still more for the place she had taken within the kingdom. She did not stay idle, but travelled far and often away from the lands of Rohan, with great fleets of men, to Gondor and her family's home, and north beyond the Misty Mountains to the plains of Eriador. What matter she had to travel often had first been looked upon with little interest, but soon the truth was revealed. Re-building, they said, in the north, and to the west. Queen Altariel was rebuilding monuments of old that had been used since the first coming of Elendil from the West. 

The great watch tower of Amun-Sul had been wrought up, and glimmering now with white stone it stood as a northern marker for the Gondor's lands, then great monuments in the ruins of Osgiliath had been conjured from the dust, so near half the city of the western bank shone like the sun. Rohan wondered in awe of the White Lady, and although she had spent much time consumed by her labours, they rejoiced when recently she had returned. Now their pride ran not from the building of monuments great and fair, that would forever stand as shows of glory to the kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor, but in the simple beauty of their Queen. For as she walked through the streets of their town, or rode bootless and wild haired from the great wooden gates of Edoras, she seemed a creature most beauteous, raised above the minds of mere mortals, so all who beheld her could do little more than stare in wonder, for the white and silver flowers in her hair were littlest of the beauties of Queen Altariel of Rohan.

" Where do you leave for, my Lady?"

Altariel turned and smiled as she saw Eomer walking towards her, a grin spread wide across his handsome face - he was truly the image of his grandfather, and first Eomer, not only in the prosperity of his rule, but within the likeness of his face. " Out of a city, across a plain, and into a valley to meet a great river." She said happily while strapping her baggage to the saddle of Niphredil.

Eomer smiled and nodded, stroking the side of the white horse. " Niphredil will go with you, but I shall not." He said after a moment's pause. 

Altariel did not need to turn to face her husband to know he no longer smiled. This was one of the things she cherished so dearly about him, his candid honesty - not keeping a secret of his feelings or of his thoughts. " I think wild horses could not drag you from your city, Eomer my love, but I sense that is not the reason for which you stay behind."

Eomer sighed lightly and nodded. " You always know my mind, Tindomerel. That does not change with time. But something does about you, since I have known you in your youth." He took Altariel's hand and pulled her towards him. " Where is the girl I knew? Quiet and adventurous, a laugh to shake the mountains, and a voice to soothe the streams?"

" I do not know, Eomer, but I am still adventurous." She protested.

Eomer nodded in ascension. " Ai, you are, and it is in your travel, away from the city for many hours a day that I wonder at these changes. Standing upon the terrace of my hall I see you ride across the plains on this fair horse, " He patted Niphredil lovingly, the horse neighed in appreciation, " but always alone."

Altariel laughed and raised a hand to touch Eomer's cheek; he worried so about her, constantly. " I am never alone when Niphredil bares me."

"But if it is solitude you seek, then can there be none found within the walls of _our _city? Forever I seem to see you coming and going, coming and going. Either east and south towards the lands of Gondor, which I do understand, for well do I remember the bond within your siblings, and I grudge it not, knowing you missed them dearly in your recent time away. But at other times..." his voice faltered, "...at other times I see you travel north, and far into the distance the white flurry of your dress and Niphredil's neat image are seen, pressing on across the plains to meet the rushing horizon. What is north that you miss so dearly?" He finished quietly.

Altariel was touched by Eomer's soft confusion, and moved by the detail with which he so obviously monitored her comings and goings from the city. "North is the home of my mother's kin, Eomer. The hidden realm of Lothlorien, where none now live, but for a time by mother did dwell. I travel north to Lorien."

" But..." Eomer frowned in confusion, trying to find a way to speak his thoughts without offence. " But Queen Arwen has passed, has she not?"

" Yes." Altariel said with a soft smile. She understood the meaning of his words, knowing well the confusion within Eomer's eyes, but the truth - ever present and presented within the eyes of the king - spoke louder than his kind words. Eomer cared little for religion, and though he did tread with solemn pace the paths of Rohan's temples, he knew no real spirit within his mind, could not comprehend the appeal which drew Altariel like a moth to a flame, to the forsaken woods of Lorien.

She sighed, and standing on her toes kissed tenderly first the forehead of her husband, and then his lips. " Do not worry for me, my love, I do not leave to escape, but simply to be."

" I will see you soon?" Eomer said, recovering some of the guard that he had lost during their conversation, he glanced at the small packs Altariel was using.

She nodded and kissed him again before mounting Niphredil, and slowly making her way towards the great doors of the stables. 

" Goodbye! Eomer called after her.

Altariel stopped, turning back to face him, she smiled softly. " Namarie, Eomer."

A fair man leant against the stone railings of a balcony, looking with longing out over the sea. The strong, salty breeze caught his pale hair, flowing upwards in the strong draught that coursed around him. The sea lay like a deep green and blue blanket, spread out across the world to the horizon. Here and there across the tumultuous surface small rippled explosions edged in white foam rose up from the sea into the sky, only to fall back to the sea in a myriad of crystal clear droplets. 

The man sighed, and tore himself away from the rhythmic churning of the sea to face the city in which he had spent to little a time.

" I see the Grey Havens have taken grasp of you, my friend. You long to stay here." Cirdan patted Legolas' shoulder.

Legolas smiled and followed Cirdan through the pale stone paths of the city until they reached the stables. Legolas leapt onto his horse, and turned to smile once more at Cirdan, feeling there was something he should say. " Ai, it has been too brief a stay for me, but I think it is time from me to leave one sea, and return to another."

Cirdan laughed. " But over land, no less?"

Legolas shrugged. " Is there nothing that escapes your attention?"

" Nothing, my friend, save the reasoning of a journey across the earth, when your own ship does now head in the same direction - to Ithilien. The Lossefalme and its crew will come to Ithilien before you, at this rate, having left nigh on a week ago."

" Maybe it is my desire to stay in your city that holds me from boarding that ship." Legolas said.

Cirdan cocked and eyebrow and shook his head. " You have some matter to which you must yet attend before leaving these shores, this much is clear in your face, though for what that matter might be, I have no clue."

" Namarie, Cirdan!" Legolas called finally. " I fear we shall not meet again, ere long days have passed!"

" You are right, Legolas, for I to have much to which I must attend before meeting my kindred beyond the seas."

Legolas stayed his horse for a moment, holding Cirdan's gaze - there was much about the silver-haired elf that Legolas did not understand. Finally the lock of their eyes broke, and Legolas spurred his horse on, out of the great stone gates of the city and into a world that seemed alien. It had been near a month since Legolas had arrived in the city of Cirdan the Shipwright. He had come with Gimli straight from Rivendell, urgent riders on most a most important errand. For it was in the Grey Havens that Legolas and Gimli had built their ship, the Lossefalme, which now sailed the coasts of Middle earth, and would reach in near a week, the home of all that remained of Legolas' people. Gimli had chosen to stay with the ship, deeming his work of carving and shaping the dark wood, with which the Lossefalme had been built, as not yet complete. Legolas knew not to what design Gimli worked, and the dwarf guarded his intentions like a hoard of jewels.

Legolas remembered standing on the docks of the city, waving farewell to Gimli and the crew of Lossefalme. All present at the farewell had agreed the ship was most beautiful and a testimony of the eclectic nature of the masters who had designed it - the influence of both elf and dwarf could be seen in the long sides of the boat, and finely carved figures, and silky white sails.

But the initial excitement of the Lossefalme had worn off, and now Legolas was consumed by a sense of partial hollowness. He wanted to wander the lands again, to ride like the wind across plains unnumbered, uninhabited, until he had crossed great mountains and come through deep valleys to reach places that had, of old, been home, or at least familiar.

The East-West road before him was long and clear, and the country around became a blurred image of fleeting hills and sapphire skies as Legolas whispered words of encouragement to the ear of his horse. The beast sped into the road before him like an eagle across the sky, and had the elf and horse been seen by some curious passer-by, they would have seemed little more than a dream, the sort of vision that spurs a memory, deep and fond, within the minds of those who often forget...

*

The path had been long, and the days flew quickly past before Legolas had come, in the fullness of midday, to the shadowy borders of Lothlorien. He had learnt a great many things during his journey. The world seemed changed. He had first noticed it while travelling slowly down the Great Road from the forests near the old town of Bree. The road was changed, no longer a wide beaten track, and edged with sparkling white stone, carved into many shapes of kings and memories, the long, low stone hedge that now bordered the sides of the road were etched with a story, almost, of the world. Legolas had looked upon the stone in confusion, and when not two days later he had met travellers along the same road and asked them the origins of the stone, they had smiled and said ' the Queen of Rohan' and stealing one last stare at the face of an elf, they had rolled their giant wooden cart away down the road towards the west.

Legolas had stayed staring after the travellers for a moment, his face a study of deep confusion, before he shook his head slowly and turned to ride again. But he could not escape mention of the Queen of Rohan. It seemed all along the greater roads of Middle earth this queen had wrought her mark. Where once stood dilapidated ruins now rose high towers of stone, finely made and happily welcomed. Her sway over the lands extended from The north of Eregion across the countryside to the base of the Misty Mountains, touching even the old stone ring of Isengard - where the stones had long been thrown down by the Ents of old, now there were sparsely positioned statues of men, facing out from the wild forest as though guarding it's inhabitance against the onset of stranger. Legolas had not entered the forest.

And so Legolas had found his way through the Gap of Rohan, and there more than ever did those lands and people whisper of the White Lady. The streams sung a lullaby of her pale skin and fair face, the breeze quoting a strong anthem of her righteousness and greatness. And for it's part the earth spoke nothing more than a crooning lament for the absence of her soft bare feet, which had once - or so Legolas was led to believe - walked each blade of grass with a solemn tread. The Queen of Rohan, it seemed, was bound up with the earth like a tightly wound rope.

That night Legolas climbed a long forgotten rope ladder to reach one of the flets that still adorned the trees on the borders of Lorien. During the dark hours his horse remained below the tree, ever silent and watchful, while above the elf wondered at this new mystery that seemed to precede his steps like an elusive shadow, and he promised himself a visit to the city of Edoras, if for no other reason than to see the woman of which all the lands did speak so highly. 

He bit his lip thoughtfully and leaned back against the strong trunk of the tree within which the flet was perched. _I will go to Edoras and pay my respect to the King Eomer, and his Queen. It has been too long since I last saw that Golden Hall. Not since the reign of Eomer the Great have my feet led my thither. _But first there was another matter to attend to - Lothlorien. That golden city which had once been too beautiful, the last great home of elven kings and queens.

And to think, he need only wait until the sun rose to find his way along familiar paths to the great hill of Caras Galadhon.

***


	10. Altariel

Altariel sat by a cool stream, the coursing water bubbling over her feet. Above her soft clouds migrated slowly across the sky, seeming as though they had no place to which they must hurry, and none that could make them do so. But knowing this, Altariel still felt that should she ask them, the clouds might quicken their pace, or disappear all together, if she desired it. It was a peculiar sense, feeling a power within one's self that could bend the very law of nature to its will. Altariel felt certain the ovlar of Rohan prospered all the more for her presence, as did Rohan's people...and Rohan's king.

She sighed and propped herself up on her elbows, ignoring the grass stains that would undoubtedly mark her white dress. She turned her thoughts to Eomer, and closing her eyes, could almost see him, sitting in counsel with his officials and nobles, but all this thought was bent towards her - his absent wife. Sometimes the love which Altariel saw within her husband's eyes was choking, a stifling mass that swallowed her up, crawling into every cavity of her body until she was consumed by it...but at other times it seemed her very life breath. After so many months of unhappiness, lonely nights spent first walking the courtyards of Gondor, and then the forests of Rivendell, Eomer had rescued her from oblivion, brought her back from the dead. But no...it had not been Eomer who had awoken the fire within Altariel's heart, it had been another. His name stung her lips, and her breath escaped in a dejected sigh at the thought of her last meeting with Him. Legolas. That elf that had made her walk as though naked under the light of Middle earth. He had stole her from the shadows and with only a few words thrust her out into the sunlight, pursuing her like a wraith across the country until her feet had led her to Rohan, and into the arms of Eomer. _What a strange twist of fate, _thought Altariel, _that the love of one man could inspire the loving of another_. For that was what was between Eomer and herself, love. 

Arriving in Rohan all those days and nights ago had been like a dream. From the gates a guard had spotted Altariel, and calling out to his companions he had named her elf, and sent a dispatch to the king to summon him. When Altariel had arrived at the gates the guard could barely conceal his delight, and had only stopped her to ask a name so he might better describer her beauty to his peers over a pint of mead when his shift had finished.

Elessiel - as she had still thought of herself - paused for a moment to think what answer she could give the guard that would not reveal her mission in Edoras. "Altariel." She had murmured finally, smiling as the guard had backed away in wonder, for their were few among the Men of Middle earth that did not know the pleasant drawl of an elfish name when it was spoken by lips so fitting.

But in truth that had not been the moment at which Elessiel Tindomerel had disappeared, and Altariel, Queen of Rohan, daughter of Gondor had appeared. That moment had been both drawn out and instantaneous, from her meeting with Celeborn, and at the same time her hasty marriage to Eomer. 

She remembered it clearly, standing upon the great terrace of Medulsed, Eomer slowly placing the delicately wrought crown of gold upon her head. And from that moment forth Elessiel had returned to the shadows, leaving Altariel behind to govern her body. It was a blessing, but at the same time a curse, for Altariel did believe the change within her mind, and within her life warranted the gifting of a new name, but still, there seemed some loss in surrendering Elessiel to the darkness again. It was as though she were pushing herself away, and adopting the guise of another, that did not belong to her, adopting the guise almost, of Galadriel. 

It was true that when Elrohir and Elladan had come to pay their respects to their niece they had commented on her change, but it had been Gimli, ever truthful, and hardly one of the art of hidden meanings, who had announced the noticeable change before an audience of Altariel, Eomer, Elladan, and Elrohir

" She has become the White Lady!" Gimli had said, gulping deeply from his pitcher and alternately drawing long breath from his carved pipe.

Altariel and Eomer had laughed and shaken their heads, but Elladan and Elrohir had remained silent with Altariel protested.

"No, no, daughter, " for this had long been the name by which Gimli had addressed Altariel, " you have become more than her likeness in face, but now also in mind! This last night come I partook of a drink in the local brewery, and was almost forcibly removed from both bar and my mirth when found laughing at the comments of two commoners who spoke of you."

" What did these commoners say, Master Gimli?" cried Eomer, rosy-cheeked with drink and merriment. Altariel had stopped laughing.

"' She is an elf!' I heard them say, calling you a descendant of the line of the Eldar. They are not so dim as to walk with their eyes closed here in Rohan, as we dwarfs say!" Gimli thumped the table with his hand, causing a candle to topple from it's home, spilling wax into his long beard and causing Eomer and Gimli to break into peals of laughter yet again.

Later that night Elrohir and Elladan had confirmed Gimli's words, adding their own mildly excited, yet ever cautious words - that Altariel should guard her new 'power' against all but her closet friends.

It seemed strange then, that she had not told Eomer of all that had come to pass. The secret power within her had remained so, never tested, never questioned, except for those brief moments that she could steal, when unsaddled she would ride across the wide plains of the horse lords, wearing the ring of Ulmo openly upon her hand, and shining like a cold star. In those moments the present and future seemed to peel away, and only the past was relevant. At those times she would most remember Legolas...

Altariel sighed and stood up from the stream, wandering back slowly towards the great centre of the city of Caras Galadhon. She found an ancient stone bench, drenched in sun and sat crossed legged upon it, chin propped in palms and staring into the distance.

__

Legolas, his name was like a balm on her mind, smoothing away thoughts of Eomer and Rohan, and exposing a dazzling world of brightness. She closed her eyes, and let those thoughts, which she had hidden rush forward to surround her consciousness. How she wished she could see him again, hear again the voice in which speaking her name had invoked a longing that could not be doused. Raising her own hand to her cheek she felt it was his hand the once again stroked her skin, and opening her eyes she bent all her being towards him, so much so that when she opened her eyes again, she could see him before her. There he was, a simmering reflection walking across the grass floored glade where she sat, his perfect face stern and thoughtful as he walked towards her, and then suddenly he was smiling, as though he was just as caught up in the dream as she was.

But this was no dream.

*

Legolas stood at the edge of the trees, looking out into the narrow glade before him. The trees stopped all together here, and the grass was long and unkempt, swaying in the wind, making the ground look as though it were pulsing, waiting to swallow him up. The sky over head was a warm rose colour with few clouds, like a smooth layer of white silk being drawn across a soft rose petal. Cutting directly through the glade was a small stream of clear water bubbling across slick black stones. And sitting on the distant shore of the stream, her small, pale feet dipping in the water, was a human woman. 

Her hair was a long cloud of silvery cobwebs, laying flat across the grass behind her head where she lay. Her skin was as white as the crest of a wave, and her face was cool and welcome at the same time, like the face of the moon. Her eyes were closed, and Legolas thought at first that she was sleeping - he almost started when he saw a smooth white hand move softly against a pale white cheek. 

As though by celestial design, at the exact moment Legolas began to move towards the woman, she opened her eyes and sat up slowly. She stared at Legolas and bit her lip, her face a study of beautiful confusion, and like a shroud had been removed from his eyes, Legolas realised who the girl was.

He took a deep breath, but realised that he had no words to describe the discovery as he came now to stand on the opposite edge of the stream.

Altariel stood quickly, staring in confusion at the elf before her. She failed to notice the deep green stains on her elbows and knees, being to shocked to comprehend anything but the obvious question - _What was he doing here?_

Legolas almost laughed with happiness as he watched Elessiel silently. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes, and as she raised her arm he saw the stains on her elbows. It had been longer for Elessiel than it had for Legolas since they last parted, and the elf marvelled at the woman before him. It had been less than a year since he had been indirectly introduced to the wilful youngest daughter - a mere girl child then - of his dearest, and oldest friend. How that girl had grown, and when, into the woman before him. Her face was the same, though slightly thinner and less full of curiosity than it had been. She seemed all at once closer to heaven and drawn tightly to the ground, for her deep blue eyes no longer stared out at him in wonder and awe. 

Legolas felt a lump in his throat as the memory of the last time he had seen Elessiel resurfaced in his mind. In Rivendell, under the stars, standing there with the daughter of Aragorn, he had felt lust in that moment, for the first time in too many years to count. Lust for the marvellous creature before him, but guilt and grief had drawn closely behind his lust, whispering in his ears about the consequences of feeling the way he did about someone who was the daughter of the man he called 'brother'. 

Legolas' resolve was broken now, and all the moments he had spent alone in the city of Cirdan rushed through the flood gates of his mind, swelling and consuming any space left in his mind by Elessiel's presence. Many hours he had spent, staring out over the water and into the West, thinking about his imminent journey to Valinor, and the kin he would see again after more than a hundred years of comparative solitude. He would stand like that for hours, leaning against the thick stone railing of some nameless terrace, the waves crashing below him, and his thoughts crashing within him. Valinor was like a distant light at the end of a tunnel in which the walls were a thick fog. But every now and again, most commonly in the evening when the distant song of elven voices floated on the sea breeze to him from afar, he would think of Elessiel. Like an enemy she would invade his mind, and her image, the touch of her skin and sound of her voice when she denied him, would pull and nip at the recesses of his mind. Their last conversation would repeat in his mind's eyes, and he would see every shape of audible word and mental message forming on those beautiful lips of Elessiel's. How many times had he breathed in the salty air of the sea only to smell the forbidden scent of Elessiel's skin? How many times had he closed his eyes and placed a woeful hand against his cheek, imagining the soft touch of Elessiel's hand, and never known that she stood away across the earth in the same pose?

And now, as they stood so close but yet so far away, Legolas battled internally to keep from being pulled down by the undertow of his thoughts. He wanted nothing more than the erase the memory of Elessiel's last bitter rebuke, and to drown himself in the dark of her eyes, the pale of her bare skin, to give his last breath up to her, and swallow her melodic voice in his hungry lips. 

In that moment, he felt love. 

And it was unlike any love he had ever felt before. Eternal life offered many chances to those who would take them, to love and be loved, and Legolas had bared his heart countless times in all his years, some chance meetings lasting a moment in the lives of men, and some a day in the lives of elves. But now no memory, no matter how sweet, mattered now. The weakness of Elessiel's days, the speed with which they would fly past served only to deepen Legolas' emotion, so that when finally he reached out across the world to touch Elessiel's hand, her willingness to oblige showed the rising of the sun over an ocean both wide and deep, made with all the love Legolas would ever, could ever feel within the eternity that he possessed, and felt now for the first time, willing to give up.

" Elessiel-" 

" Altariel." She corrected, staring down at her hand within Legolas'.

Legolas frowned deeply in confusion. "'Altariel'? I am afraid I do not understand."

She smiled and took a deep breath, trying to be rid of the twisting feeling within her stomach. " My name is Altariel." She said confidently.

Legolas smiled curiously and laughed lightly. " That face of yours - whatever name it chooses to go by - has been absent from my sight too long."

Altariel laughed, feeling relaxed in the welcoming sound of the elf's voice. She leapt across the stream lightly, standing before Legolas as over head the rose-petal sky wilted into deep blue. " A sentiment both fair and true, for both of us."

Legolas laughed sharply again, not knowing what to say, but wanting no silence between them, fate had been to fickle between them to have silence spread a seed of discontent, as often he had seen it did. " This is fair tidings indeed, the meeting of old friends."

__

Is that what we are? Altariel thought as she followed Legolas across the glade towards the forest. He beckoned to her down a wide path, leading through the trees to the very centre of the forest - Caras Galadhon. Here the once majestic city of Galadriel had fallen to partial decay, but Legolas led Altariel up a long winding flight to stair and into the abandoned network of great flets that had once been the palace. 

She followed him in silence through labyrinthine corridors made entirely of branches and vines shedding impossible amounts of amber coloured leaves. They stopped briefly as Legolas pushed open a set of heavy, carved wooden doors. The room beyond was a wide circular flet, but the centre of the floor had been cut out, a thin railing running its circumference. Legolas turned back to smile at Altariel before he stepped lightly to the side of the railing before sitting crossed legged on the edge, one foot dangling over the edge, a dizzying distance above the forest floor. The height almost made Altariel nervous, but she was too preoccupied to notice much else than the elf in front of her, smiling invitingly and holding out his hand. She followed, sitting beside him, feeling at naturally at ease as Legolas' hand guided her head down to rest on his shoulder. 

" You want to know where I have been." Legolas said after some time. He felt Altariel smile against his shoulder.

" No. I do not need to be told, to know where you have been."

"You know me so well, then?" Legolas said lightly. He felt Altariel shift, almost as though she were suddenly uncomfortable.

But all she said was, " I do not need to know the man to know his thoughts."

Legolas turned towards her, a quizzical look in his eyes at her last remark. With his finger under her chin he gently tilted her head up to better study her features, the softest pang of regret hiding within him as he noticed the subtle changes that seemed to take place perpetually in the beautiful face of a human, even more so within Altariel. " What has happened to you, to make you so...far sighted? For that is what you are. I sense it, the knowledge within you that beguiles your youth. I do not know what happens to me when I look into your eyes, but I think you may be able to tell me."

Altariel bit her lip in indecision, not questioning the possibility of sharing her inner thoughts with Legolas as much as wondering what such a concession would bring. But it could be avoided no longer, and as she reached out a hand to touch his skin Altariel felt a relief, realising she was doing what should have been done a lifetime ago - or so it seemed - in Rivendell.

" Close your eyes." She gently thumbed shut Legolas' eyes, " Take a deep breath, and picture my face if you can."

" I can." He said with a quiet, childish smirk.

Altariel heard only the words he spoke and not their meaning, she lay her hand against his open palm, and closed her eyes. 

Legolas was trying to sit still and breath deeply, but the soft stroke of Altariel's fingers on his palm was distracting. His concentration waned for a moment, but ever so slightly he was aware of a shudder passing repeatedly through his body, his skin tingled and his ears pricked. " Elessiel...what are you doing to me?" He murmured with slight alarm.

She only smiled and said " This is what happened to me."

Those words were far away, muffled by the churning of waves and wind, and Legolas felt himself slipping - as though his body were slowly falling to the forest floor below - inwards, not into his own mind, but into Altariel's.

***


	11. Folly in Love

The sky was dark, stars like pricks of light in a sea of black wheeled quickly over head, but for Legolas it seemed only a moment. A moment in which he saw a lifetime of hurt, pain, love, jealously, adventure. A lifetime of Elessiel. He knew no words could ever tell the story he had seen, no song or riddle could capture the enormity of the event - an immortal seeing an entire life of men in little more than a moment. For that is what he had seen when Elessiel had touched his hand so tenderly and told him to close his eyes to the forest around him. He had imagined her face for only a moment before the image if Arwen had come before his eyes. And then the birth of Elessiel, a sight which Legolas found all the more perplexing for having never seen the birth of a child, let alone a human child. 

He had seen her grow from a babe in arms to the woman she now was, Altariel. He saw the story behind her obvious change. He saw the confusion in the teary eyes of the daughter of Aragorn when her immortal grandfather had come to her in a dream. Every detail, every moment she felt or thought he felt or thought it with her. And finally, his vision had slowed, and the procession of a man and woman walking hand in hand down the stone path of a great church had blended with the black of his eyes, and he saw only the forest again. The forest, and the woman from the vision.

She was sitting in a great throne, carved into the design of a great tree with golden birds and silver animals. The throne of Galadriel. Altariel sat with her head bowed, staring intently at something in her hands. Legolas stood slowly and walked towards her. He saw now the seven stones she tossed from hand to hand. They sparkled like gold and silver, transparent and opaque, all at once filled with colour and void of matter. 

" You are married, Elessiel." He said as he came to sit on the stair below Elessiel's feet.

She started at the sound of his voice, dropping one her stones. She frowned mournfully at it as it tumbled down the folds of her skirt to be caught by Legolas. 

He held the warm stone in his hand for a moment, stunned into silence, as it grew cool and colourless, sparkling no longer in his hand. He looked up and met Elessiel's eyes; the question in his eyes communicated to her the question of his heart. She slid from the throne, and coming to sit beside him on the step she threw the stones aside and gripped his hands in sudden urgency. 

" I am not married." She said quickly, shaking her beautiful head.

Legolas frowned in confusion. " But with my own eyes I have seen you wed-"

She pressed a finger against his lips. " No. You saw the wedding of Altariel. And believe me, we are more separate to each other than the sun and the moon." Her words were fast, fluent, the hurry in her voice evident, as though she knew that did she not say these words now, she would never say them.

" I do not understand what you are saying." Legolas replied slowly. 

Elessiel gave a stifled cry. " You must! I've laid bare my soul with this folly!" She said softly, almost to herself. 

Legolas yearned to help her in some way, though he could see no manner in which he could remove the urgency from her voice, nor the racing pulse from her sweet, cold wrist that pressed against his own. His mind flew hither and tither, trying to grasp an idea, a word to say that might appease her, and like a beacon in the dark he discovered what words he might say that would comfort her. The truth. His movement towards her was so small and yet so integral to what he would say. He held her hand tightly, feeling the strange, cold presence of a sharp ring dig into his palm. 

He began, " I know little of the woman before me, but little have I always known about her, no matter the name she goes by. It pains me to say, for I would not cause her pain for all the stars in the sky, but I do think I love her, who ever she may be." Elessiel's face turned sharply towards Legolas', and though he desired it, he had already said too much to not continue. He sighed heavily, and ran his hand lightly from the crown of Elessiel's hair to her neck. " You have bared your soul to me, Lady, but I would not call it folly, and I would beg you never to address it so, for I have loved you, I fear, since first our eyes met atop battlements in your fair city, it seems so long ago, my love grows all the more for having known you now all the short years of your life." And there, in the gathering darkness of the forest, he meant it.

Elessiel was made silent with Legolas' words, unable to find any to reply she simply shook her head and place her palm against Legolas' hot skin. 

Legolas smiled, leaning into Elessiel's touch, as he had done so many night ago in Rivendell, on the forest path. He had spent the nights between then and now dreaming about that moment, when he was gripped by fear and anticipation at the idea that the next words spoken from Elessiel's sweet mouth could be those that bound her to him for the rest of her life.

" Please tell me so, to whom I plead my love so forthwith - the Lady Elessiel Tindomerel, or Queen Altariel of Rohan?" He laughed, though Elessiel's watery smile was little more than a brief shadow of Legolas' joy. " For I care not, so long as she to whom I speak does know my love, and so return it."

Elessiel bit her lip; her fingers still ran along Legolas' face, from the bright height of his cheek to the softness of his lips. She took a deep breath in futile preparation for the words she would next speak. Her eyes watered, her lips quivered surely the only sign of the inner turmoil she endured as she braced herself by gripping Legolas' hand. The ring on her finger dug deeper into both her own and Legolas' flesh. 

" Lady?" Legolas breathed softly, anticipation lifting his voice and the corners of his lips. " What say you Elessiel?"

She nodded slowly and spoke finally, " _Elessiel_, I know it is to her you plead your love, immortal as it is. But I am not she, and my life is not immortal," She paused, allowing the full meaning of her words to gather under Legolas' frown. " And the Lady Elessiel is lost. Somewhere between the land of Rivendell and love for an elf she disappeared, and from her ashes came Altariel, Queen of Gondor, wife of Eomer."

" You are married, though I care not. For tell me, Elessiel, what mortal bindings can separate such love as I know you have for me, and I for you?" Legolas said in haste.

" _Elessiel_, it is to her you speak again! But I am not she, elf. And though her memory will wither within my own mind, I see it shall burn eternal within your own. But alas, I am mortal, and being so am bound by hand and foot of mortal bindings, such ropes as love that tie me not to you, my master immortal, but to my husband, King Eomer."

Legolas shook his head in protest, not willing to accept the connotation of the words which Altariel - as Altariel she insisted on being - spoke, but finding his own meaning within them. But he was rebuked, and being so, desired not to continue their conversation. He released Altariel's hands, and stood back from her, regretting both the loss of her touch against his cheek, her fingers on his lips, but more so the truthful words he had spoken. _But what fear should I have? Words spoken to a mortal die with the ears that heard them, and I will continue,_ he thought pointedly. But there was great bitterness and hurt in that thought.

" Legolas, you have taken some meaning, some offence from my words I did not intend. For I do love you dearly, and would bind you to my heart-"

He turned and faced her, bating rage brimming at the edge of his voice as he said " But what love have you for 'master immortal'? What shape does your love twist to, like a snake? Like a serpent biting at your soul, and my mind?"

Altariel stood and moved towards him, holding his hands tenderly she brought them against her warm cheek, and kissed the palm of his hand, she stared into his eyes. " Like the twist of a rope, binding the dear friend of my father to me."

" Though nothing more." Legolas said thickly.

" I am married-"

Legolas rolled his eyes and stepped away, half astounded at his childish behaviour, but too consumed by his building rage to speak rationally. " I care not! As I have said. You may call yourself by a different name, _Altariel,_" He spat her name out like it a rotten fruit " but you are still the daughter of my dear friend, as you have said. I know there is something within your heart, some piece of you that belongs solely to me. Do you deny it?"

" I do not. But it is folly to love the elves. And I am changed, married and unwilling to waste my life lusting after an elf for the sacrifice of a King's love. I not sacrifice your friendship though, knowing what it meant to my father." Her words were harsh and straight; the first logical argument she had made not twisted by the desire not save Legolas from pain.

Legolas stood for a moment; _it is folly to loves the elves?_ He had little neither time nor energy to consider such words... Arms crossed over his chest, his foot tapping out his frustration. " What would you ask of me then? For the love of an elf is not given easily, and denied, it is not easily covered over by a hasty friendship. So what do you ask?"

Altariel waited in silence for both her own and Legolas' temper to cool before she answered. " A friendship I offer neither hasty nor a tool of cover. Where Elessiel may be found I know not, but the gift of your love shall pass to her, and being accepted by her she does belong to you, though in shadows she does exist." She laughed lightly, pressing her fingers against her lips as though she wished to trap that laugh within her. " Do I speak in riddles?" Legolas shook his head. " Then I will leave such topics to the shadows, and speak instead of what I would ask of you. With the dawn I will leave for home, to Rohan, and returning to my kingdom and my King I would ask you to join me, for I know Eomer's heart, he would much desire the meeting with you, if you could bear it. Could you bear it?"

Legolas nodded once and remained in silence. 

" Then in Rohan shall our friendship begin, and hopefully prosper quickly, for I know it has not much time left on these shores." 

Legolas cocked an eyebrow at her last comment. " How would you know such things?"

She laughed lightly. " My eyes see far and wide, and I hear much news from the land." She said with a prophetic wave of her hand. " Other than which I speak often with Master Gimli of the Glittering Caves, who now resides in Ithilien and awaits your arrival." 

Legolas smiled, but did not say anything in response - it was somewhat unnerving to know Gimli spoke frequently with Altariel, and obviously about him.

" In return is there anything you would ask of me?" She said quietly, coming to stand beside the elf.

He looked up, and Altariel's heart wrenched in her chest at the sight of his eyes - burning deep and impossibly blue in the starlight which leaked through the roof of leaves, he seemed to slowly be turning her inside out with that gaze. " There are shadows tonight in the city of Caras Galadhon." Altariel nodded for him to continue surprised as Legolas took her hand in his own. " And all I would ask is to lay beside the Lady Elessiel, who you say does live in shadows, and for a night - a mere moment in my lifetime - know the love that dare not speak it's name until the sun does rise, and Rohan calls again."

Altariel bit her lip and frowned deeply, knowing not what words she could say that would convey her thoughts to the elf. She stared down at her hands in helplessness, and noticed suddenly a trickle of blood coming not only from her own hand, but also from Legolas'. She raised his hand towards her eyes, finding a small nick in the flesh at the base of one of his fingers. Her own hand held the same mark, and though it was small and hurt not, she knew with strange satisfaction that it would scar.

She raised her eyes to meet Legolas' questioning stare, and sighed sadly. " Until Rohan calls again, Elessiel is yours."

***


	12. Returns

King Eomer of Rohan sat alone in his throne room in Medulsed; his beared-chin propped heavily on his fist, his eyes clouded by a constant frown. His mood could only be described as brooding, and as such he had not heard the scuttling tramp of a single attendant for near two hours as he sat in silence. Those who attended the King knew better than to let their presence be known when the King was found in such a mood as he had been for near two days. And all knew the origins of his mood - Queen Altariel had not returned from the north, though she had never stayed so long away from the kingdom.

The golden halls of Medulsed seemed empty without her laughter, and Eomer was irritable, often finding himself pacing in boredom or frustration, one moment cursing his wife for deserting him so - for few knew the anxiety with which he treated Altariel's absences, he had not forgotten her unexplained absence from their courting for so many months after the death of her father. The next moment he would be racked with guilt and desperation that he could not simply take his wife into his arms and know the sweetness of her embrace. He wished only that she would send word of when she planned a return, and at times he thought her lack of communication proof of her imminent arrival. He would stand looking out from Medulsed and scan the horizon for her telltale white form darting across the plains towards him, towards home. But for the past two days, nothing had come...

" My Lord?"

A meek voice woke Eomer from his stupor, and he turned towards the chambermaid in rage, fleeting though it may have been, it was rage none the less. " What?" He said sharply, returning his chin to its prop. 

The chambermaid bowed slightly and stood gripping her hands so tightly that her knuckles turned white. " My Lord, the stable attendants send word through me, to you, to tell you the Queen arrives."

Eomer stood quickly, his head swivelling first left, then right, then down towards the chambermaid. She took a step back in fear. Eomer descended the stairs to stand opposite the chambermaid, resisting the urge to grip the girl by the arms and shake the news out of her. " When does she arrive?"

" Near an hour past she was seen coming towards the gates, with-" 

But Eomer waved the girl away, not letting her finish. Thus he missed the most important piece of news the chambermaid had, for Altariel had gone afield before, and sure as the rising of the sun she had returned, but never before in the company of an elf. 

" That will be all. You may leave, thank you." Eomer said quickly before turning from the girl and his thrown, he walked quickly from the great hall, down the corridor that was the most direct path to the stables.

*

Altariel and Legolas spent possibly more time than was needed tending their horses after they arrived. They stood with their backs to the great carved, wooden doors to the stable, laughing and talking with ease - their journey from Lorien had caused the growth of such ease between them, and both felt, though they did not share the thought, that they not been so close since a night so long ago on a forest path in the far and fair realm of Rivendell.

" Altariel!" 

She stopped in the middle of her discussion with Legolas while brushing Niphredil's white coat. She turned quickly to see Eomer almost running towards her. The anxiety on her husband's face was blatant and held the promise of some frightened reprimand, and so Altariel prepared herself. She turned from Legolas without another word and walked towards Eomer, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him deeply. " I have returned." She said, stepping back from the embrace.

Eomer was practically spluttering with outrage. " I can see that much, though I was almost to the point of not expecting it! Why have you been gone so long, Altariel? You should have given some word if you knew before hand how long you would be away. You sent no word, gave no token, and so I say, do not stay so long away from your home."

Altariel cocked and eyebrow in surprise and put her hands on her hips. " _Do not_? Is that a command?"

" Yes." Eomer said, before he could think. For if he had thought for only a moment longer before giving an answer, he would have known the mistake he had just made.

" A command from my king, I would expect, but not from my husband. Such a command would be both unwise and ill advised. What say you, Eomer? Do you speak as King, or as husband?" Altariel said confidently. She turned and winked at Legolas, who stood slightly behind Niphredil, supposedly brushing the horse, but was more interested in the interaction between Altariel and Eomer.

Eomer stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment before exhaling loudly and shaking his head. " I foretell a battle I cannot win." He said with a laugh. He took Altariel hand and kissed it in surrender. " I am sorry, I did not mean to rule you, my Queen, but I worried for your safety..." he trailed off as he noticed the man standing but a few feet behind his wife, obviously listening intently to all that was said between himself and Altariel, while brushing the coat of his wife's horse. "...But I see my worry is unfounded, you have found yourself a protector from the wild?" He said sarcastically, indicating with a dip of his head that he meant Legolas.

Altariel stared at him in confusion for a moment before she turned to follow his gaze. She took Eomer's hand and led him to Legolas' side. Legolas put down the brush he had been using and dusted his hands off on his pants. 

" I had hoped for a more formal introduction, for it is my belief that when two such great leaders meet under peaceful conditions, it should be in suitable surroundings, not dust covered and travel weary by the side of a horse," Niphredil neighed loudly and Altariel patted her lovingly " no matter how grand the horse may be. But alas, the introduction has found us, and so: Eomer King or Rohan, here is Legolas of Ithilien, allied of old with my father, Elessar the Elfstone, and friend in battle to Eomer the Great." 

For his part Legolas bowed low in silence, an action Eomer found strangely apt for his first meeting with an elf. 

" Then as I am my grandfather's grandson I welcome you to Rohan." Eomer said cautiously, gripping Legolas' hand in the traditional meeting of friends in Rohan. 

" As I was your grandfather's friend, I thank you." Legolas murmured. For some strange reason he found himself playing every part the ethereal elf - he could find no friendly words to greet Eomer, and thought it better to simply remain silent. 

But after a moment too long, silence gave way to the beginnings of tension, and Altariel intervened. " If you will excuse me, ever vain and wanting of a good appearance, I'll take leave of my kin," She smiled at Eomer " And take leave of my friend," She turned to Legolas, " and meet again when I have seen myself properly attired for the presence of two lords so great." She bowed slightly to Eomer as she turned to leave the stables, a gesture Legolas found oddly formal between wife and husband. He noticed overall that she seemed more guarded when in the presence of Eomer, and in his mind he began to develop all manner of wild ideas to explain such changes in behaviour.

Eomer turned to Legolas and clapped his hands together. " It seems that woman's place is often neglected: on the first count absence for so long from her kingdom and King, and for the second, taking leave without introducing a guest to lodging!" He laughed in a hearty fashion and seemed just short of slapping Legolas on the shoulder.

Legolas smiled weakly, but narrowed his eyes when Eomer turned to lead him from the stables. " I do not think _that woman_ leave anything wanting." He said quietly, to which Eomer slowed down.

He turned to face Legolas as he opened the doors of the stable, and for a moment the sun blinded Legolas as he came out into the quiet street. " No, I suppose you do not." Eomer said slowly. He stared at Legolas for a moment before he began walking again, up a winding path towards Medulsed, which could be seen between gaps in buildings, it was shining gold and warm in the midday sun, and Legolas was for a moment lost in the memory of the last time he had seen the Golden Hall. 

" Tell me, Legolas, what errand bought you to the side of my wife while she was on her travels." Eomer said as they rounded a corner in the path and came to the foot of the steps leading to Medulsed. 

Legolas followed the King up the stairs, ignoring the stunned stares of passers by as they whispered and pointed at him. " I had in my mind to visit the forests of Lorien for a time before returning to my own land in Ithilien. There in Lorien I met Altariel, singing beside a stream in Caras Galadhon." 

Reaching the top of the stairs Eomer greeted the guards standing on either side of the great golden doors. The guards opened the doors; Legolas followed Eomer into the semi-darkness of Medulsed's Great Hall. 

Eomer laughed, and the sound cut shallow wounds in Legolas with its sharpness. " Her absence is explained - I did not know my wife travelled so far afield as Lorien. And though I do not know the land of Caras Galadhon, I would wager it is further still."

Legolas almost scoffed at the man's ignorance. " Caras Galadhon was of old the chief realm of Lorien. It was the city of Queen Galadriel and King Celeborn."

Eomer only nodded, and coming to the end of the Great Hall, he ascended the stairs to his throne, and sat down. Legolas was left standing before him. " You speak a Queen's name before a King's, it is seldom done in Rohan, though I am told - though mainly in riddled tongues - by Altariel that the Lady Galadriel was a great leader."

" Yes, it was so." 

" All the same, it would do my wife well to stay within the borders of her own land, no guarantee can be made for her safety outside the borders of Rohan's plains." Eomer said, stroking his beard again.

Legolas fought not to sneer openly. " Altariel needs no borders for protection, I do not hesitate to say."

Eomer cocked an eyebrow and nodded silently in concession. At that moment a young lady came forward from the shadow, first bowing to Eomer, then to Legolas, she said " My Lord, the Queen has sent me to lodge Lord Legolas. I would not interrupt, but know that you may call on me when need finds you wanting for accommodation." 

Legolas was about to mutter a thankyou, but reconsidered. He turned to Eomer and said " My Lord, I am both weary and travel worn. May I take my leave?"

Eomer nodded, but did not stand. " We shall speak again later, no doubt, when Altariel has collected herself."

" No doubt." Legolas said before turning on his heel to follow the young lady. 

She had led him slowly from the Great Hall, and coming down a dimly lit side corridor they had to the back of Medulsed. Walking past a wide window Legolas could see away south, into the hills. The day was warm and breezy outside the Hall, but inside, walking down the ornately carved corridors of the Great Golden Hall, Legolas felt strangely cool. He wanted to find Altariel and ask her to show him the city, knowing that Eomer would extend no such courtesy to him. But his thoughts were interrupted when the young lady stopped abruptly before him.

She turned and peered curiously up into Legolas' face. " Begging you pardon, but are you really?" She said excitedly.

Legolas tried not to smile. " Am I what?"

" An elf!" the girl hissed in excitement. She clasped her hands together in front of her throat as though she had said something of great offence. 

" I am."

The girl clapped her hands together and grinned. " The Lady told me it was so, and I did not believe it could be, for my Mamma told me all the Fair Folk had left our lands in great ships many years ago, and that they were not seen again. But you could not be the only one." 

" I am not, though few of my kind remain, and fewer of my kin."

" I would not ask, but I am ever so curious about elves, since I was a wee thing, as my Mamma says."

Legolas smiled kindly. " What is your name?"

" Hurien." She said quietly. 

" I am glad to meet you, Hurien." Legolas said formally. The girl almost squealed with delight, but soon managed to bring herself under control.

" And are you?" Hurien said as they began walking again down the long, winding corridor.

" Am I what?" 

" Going to leave in a great ship and never return." Hurien said. She stopped, and laid a hand on a door carved with a great horse on rearing up on its back legs, with a round sun behind it. 

" Yes, I will leave and never return. I will go to join my kin in Valinor." There seemed no harm in sharing such details with a simple chambermaid from Rohan. " I have built a great ship also, white and carved with patterns and animals. It is called the Lossefalme, and it waits in Ithilien for my arrival."

" I did not know that."

Legolas and Hurien both turned to see Altariel standing in the middle of the corridor. Legolas almost caught his breath as her beauty struck him. She had changed from her travel stained and grass marked simple white dress into a great flowing gown of green. Her silvery hair lay half against her back, but half pinned up with golden hairpins, each of which held a sparkling blue stone. She wore no jewellery, but as she moved her arm Legolas saw the sparkle of some hidden jewel tied securely around her wrist with a piece of white ribbon.

" I will show Legolas to his room, Hurien. Would you please see to a meal being prepared for the King and Lord Legolas?"

Hurien bowed her head and turned to leave. 

" Namarie, Hurien!" Legolas called as the girl walked quickly down the corridor. She stopped at the corner and looked back at Legolas in wonder, and the exclamation of 'An elf!' could be heard amidst the shuffle of running feet.

Altariel moved slowly towards Legolas, regarding him with a serious face. " I did not know you would leave."

" I thought Gimli would have told you as much." Legolas said pointedly.

Altariel frowned at him. " I think Gimli would expect you to have told me." She walked past Legolas, into the room with the great horse on the door. " Tell me of the Lossefalme." 

Legolas followed her into the wide room, closing the door behind him. It was a large chamber of two rooms, one with a table and chairs, a tall bookcase filled with old books and scrolls covered in dust, and a ornate set of standing candelabras, none of the candles had been lit. Legolas walked slowly around the room, running a hand along the edge of a chair, knocking a fist on the surface of the table. Peering around the corner into the second room he saw a wide bed rimmed in thick curtains. He suddenly realised how tired he was. He sat down opposite Altariel at the table. She was fiddling awkwardly with the beads on the wide cuff of her sleeve.

" The Lossefalme...while you have been rebuilding monuments for the land, I have built the Lossefalme for the sea. She is both fair and powerful." He said proudly.

Altariel nodded in encouragement. " Was she built in Ithilien?"

" No, in Cirdan's home, by the sea. It is as it should be; of old my people have always departed from that city, and Cirdan the Shipwright is both skilled and wise beyond the years of the land in the arts of shipbuilding. Much of the beauty of Lossefalme is of Cirdan's hands." Legolas said.

" When shall you leave?" Altariel said, fighting hard to keep from choking on the words - it seemed quietly unthinkable for Legolas to be permanently absent from her life, but grief at such a thought would not easily win her over.

Legolas shrugged and ran his hands back and forth across the smooth surface of the wood. He looked up and met Altariel's passive stare and though, _I would stay for an eternity if she would ask it of me...but she will not._ " When the time comes, I will leave. But it is not come yet, and for a while I would rather tarry here with you than be anywhere else."

Altariel smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment, but gave no notice to Legolas that she understood their hidden meaning. He wondered for a moment if he had not made his meaning clear when Altariel stood and walked towards the door. She paused when her hand meet the silken wooden surface.

She turned and stared down at Legolas, her face serious and unreadable. " I would rather you tarry here with me, than be anywhere else." She said quietly. " Hurien will call on you when Eomer is ready, please take rest until then." She said before moving to leave.

" Good afternoon, Altariel Tindomerel." Legolas said quickly.

She turned and exhaled slowly, closing her eyes, as though she could not bear to meet Legolas'. " Good afternoon, Legolas."

*

Although it was many ages since the land of Rohan was given to the horse lords by the King of Gondor, and Rohan was now autonomous, small inconsistencies could still be noticed by those who looked closely at the city of Edoras. The great realm of the horse lords and their armies had developed little culturally, and while Altariel had done her best to better the city of Edoras in the small time she had been Rohan's Queen, there still seemed a lack of permanence in the city roads, it's wooden buildings. Compared with the might and splendour of Edoras' father city, Minas Tirith, it was barely a village, cold and beautiless to an eye so used to the cut stones and massive monuments of Gondor's chief city. This was much of the reason Altariel wandered so frequently outside the city walls, though out of loyalty to Eomer, she would not freely admit her small contempt for her fostered city.

As soon as she returned to Edoras, Altariel had expected to be gone again, if not for longer than a hour, she planned to wander the fields outside the city - as was often her custom when returning from a journey. But a strange change had come over her, and she found herself not looking upon the makeshift wooden constructions of Edoras with distaste, but with a quiet affection. She desired not to travel, for once, and knew acutely the origins of her comfort - Legolas. His presence within the city seemed a beacon of hope, like a fair lighthouse amongst the ruins of a crashing sea. He held the beauty and splendour of a different age within his face. His words were refined, ethereal when taken next to the likes of even Eomer. There could be no denying the superior status of an elf, and though it pained Altariel to admit, she did compare Legolas with Eomer. When they stood together, she matched their height, the fairness of their faces and the strength of their bodies. Legolas was slightly smaller of frame, if not as tall as Eomer, his long and fair silken hair served as an amiable opponent to Eomer's thick, coarse short hair and rough beard. Legolas' face was clean cut, ageless, glowing with Inner Light. Eomer's was dark skinned, rough and slightly worn by the years he had seen. Eomer's voice was like a rasping stone, deep and rich in tone. He spoke nicely, but plainly, not mincing his meanings with the art of words. He preferred at all times to speak the truth clearly, and desired the same of others. Legolas' voice was like the bubble of a spring over a riverbed, light and merry at times, but at others magnificent and piercing in intensity. His words were ever fair, even an insult or rebuke seemed a work of art from the tongue of the elf. It was true, both men commanded a majesty and superiority that their peers could not fail to notice, but the most noticeable difference between them was, strangely enough, their hands.

When Eomer held Altariel in his arms, she felt safe, protected and unwilling to leave warm emotional haven he created. It was true, his words could be harsh, and oft he clung to closely to the old views of a woman's position, but his kiss was like a cool balm to Altariel's racing mind, and she had never doubted that their marriage was the right path of life for her travel. He was a great man, this much was evident in his people's high opinion of him, and though there was many a moment he proved rustic and simple in his beliefs, he was a gentleman, old and traditional in his ways, but young and joyful in his kingship.

And then there was Legolas. Altariel winced at the memory of the encounters they had found themselves in - both brief and far between. At least until Lorien. _Lorien, _she thought idly, _how that immortal place could hold my heart..._

Legolas had seemed so desperate, _so _intense when he had asked to spend the night with her, that no refusal could be made. And all Altariel could do was take him by the hand, as leading him through the skeletal structure of Lorien's palace they had come finally to some long forgotten chamber. There the roof had been destroyed, and leaves fell across the floor like rain. Laying on the floor, beneath the canopy of stars Legolas had folded Altariel into his arms and with his cheek resting against her back they had remained so until the sun had rose. Altariel had been asleep with her eyes open, more consumed and enthralled in the touch of Legolas' hand upon her collar bone and shoulder than she had been by any embrace Eomer could offer. More than her body was held within Legolas' arms, it was as though he had reigned her soul to his will. Lulled by his rhythmic breath across the back of her neck, she barely noticed when he would periodically whisper some quiet elfish phrase in her ear. It seemed to Altariel that Legolas would say these words in apology, in the brief moments when he would wake, for she thought he spelt at times. She did not know that the periods of silence were marked by her own fleeting slumber, and that Legolas' speech had been constant throughout the night, and most likely the cause of her inner peace. What words he had said, she did not know. Indeed, all she knew was the incredibly real fear that should he repeat them in her ear and kiss her throat as he had, she would no longer belong to Eomer...

So now she sat in her chamber, her face turned towards her wide window which revealed a calming view of Edoras and the plains beyond, the sun creeping slowly from it's high perch in the sky towards the horizon. She imagined she could almost see the dark edge of a forest on the northern borders of the land, but it was a dream, and nothing more. 

Hurien sat before Altariel on a stool. She had been so busy chirping away about the presence of the elf in Edoras that she had not noticed when Altariel had stopped braiding her hair. " Altariel?" She said finally, turning to follow Altariel's gaze. 

The sky was bathed red, reflecting on the Queen's pale skin, a shadow of the thin clouds showing in her dark eyes. She did not answer Hurien, but simply turned away from the window and continued to braid the girl's hair. 

But Hurien was not to be fooled. She had served the Queen since the first day she had arrived in Edoras, and the two had grown so close that often Altariel would let Hurien ride on Niphredil with her, deep into the country around Edoras, or at least when Hurien could be spared by her mother. And the girl knew now that something was not right within her friend's mind, some annoyance had lodged itself within Altariel, and it showed clearly in the frown on her beautiful face.

" Is something the matter?" Hurien said curiously. She heard Altariel sigh heavily.

" Dear Hurien, I fear you would not understand." She said with a soft smile. She tied the ends of the girl's hair together and watched as Hurien turned first towards her, then walked silently towards the large looking glass that hung on Altariel's wall. Her finger's danced along the line of her detailed and delicate braid, like thin spider's legs weaving a glossy web. Her hair was braided in the traditional mode of LothLorien.

Hurien turned towards Altariel with a grin on her face, and rushing forward she grasped the Queen's hands. " It is beautiful! I shall never take it out." She said excitedly.

Altariel smiled and placed her cold hand against Hurien's cheek. There was so much hope, so much happiness within the young girl's face, it seemed almost to vibrate through all her limbs, and into Altariel's hands. " I do not ever recall seeing you so happy, nor anyone amused by so small a deed as a braid."

Hurien sat down beside Altariel and stared her silently for a moment. " It is a beautiful gift, and no small deed. But here, I have no gift to give you in return, for I know not how to braid hair, and if I did I doubt I could surpass your own talent! I must give you something in return." She said, tapping her chin for a moment as though she were deep in thought. "Aha! I know deed I may perform for you, and though I fear it is small, I know no other who could offer it."

Altariel laughed at Hurien's contagious excitement. " Come then, tell me what this deed is, Hurien."

" I shall be your secret keeper, and you shall tell me the worries that weigh on you so, and in doing so, I might bear the weight, if only in part. For it is not right nor suited for a Queen so high and fair as yourself to be so trapped by her thoughts."

Altariel sighed, and was on the verge of declining, but a subtle voice in the back of her mind told her not to lightly dismiss Hurien's offer. _And why not?_ She thought suddenly. It could not be denied that a sympathetic ear was needed, and who else could fill the position? Altariel knew she could not speak to Gimli about matters of the heart concerning one so close to the dwarf. And neither Eomer nor Legolas could be consulted, for it was between them both that Altariel's resolve was torn. _No, Hurien could be trusted, and it best to fill the position_, Altariel told herself confidently. And so she began. She told Hurien of all that passed with her, revealing the story of Elessiel Tindomerel from her errand to LothLorien at the bidding of her mother, to find an unknown elf. She spoke about all that had passed in Gondor, the death of her father, the crowning of Eldarion, and the councillor her family had found in Legolas. She spoke shamefully of her flight from Minas Tirith into the wilderness, and her passage to Rivendell, to the home of her uncles. Hurien listened to silent awe to his part of the tale, for ever since she was a child had she known a love of elves that was not evident in many of the race of Men so late in the history of the world. Altariel continued her story through all that had taken place in Rivendell, of her meeting with Gimli, her brief but fiery encounter with Legolas, and her midnight departure, fleeing again from the elf who like the hound of the Valar had pursued her first from Gondor to Rivendell. She spoke aloud for the first time those words of disapointment mixed confusingly with relief when Legolas and Gimli did not follow her to Rohan. The only part she left out was the role Celeborn had played in her story, and although the words of Celeborn passed from Hurien to Altariel, she said instead that they were from her uncles, a prophetic warning of all that _could _come to pass.

" I know in my heart I did not wish for him to follow me, but some piece of me could not heed those words of my...uncle. Coming to Rohan, I left the name of Elessiel Tindomerel behind me, and one - save yourself now - only knows the name under which I was born, and that is Eomer, who will not part with that secret for all the esteem he holds me in. Our marriage was long known to me, since passing from the forest of Rivendell, to be the road by which I should cease my aimless wandering. And so it has been."

Hurien sat gaping for a moment, not knowing by which words she could respond - so many questions and comments were housed within her mind. But being young, and innocent, and possibly more of intellect than others would say of her, she knew where to begin. " But your path has come to a great fork, has it not?" She said wisely.

Altariel nodded. " Yes, it has. Though I know not to what direction these new ways may lead me."

Hurien scoffed lightly. " That is easy, Lady. The answer is more plain that the nose on my face." She held her hands, palms up, out to either side of her. " Your left path leads straight onwards, there you would walk a step behind a great king among men, and the long years of your life would be filled with much happiness, great joy. The journey along that road is smooth and tended, and though you may at times wander asunder into the thicket and forest beside the road, you will always find your way home."

Altariel frowned while Hurien spoke, knowing the oracle that Hurien provided held much truth. " And what direction does the second path lead me in?" There were butterflies in her stomach when she asked the question, waiting with bated breath for the answer.

Hurien smiled knowingly, seeming much older in her face, bathed in the deep red of the sun as it began to disappear below the horizon. She had not noticed how long Altariel had been speaking until this moment. She stood and bowed slightly, readying herself to go. At the doorway she stopped and turned. " The direction of the second path will return you to someone you did not expect to see again."

" Legolas." Altariel said grimly.

" No, My Lady. That path will lead you to Elessiel."

And with that the girl was gone.

***


	13. Forever in Flight

As is oft in times of peace about a kingdom, the problems within may seem more terrible, more threatening and all the more luminous for the fact that they are the largest troubles experienced at the time. Such was the case within Rohan, and especially within Eomer. A week now he had spent in the company of Legolas, with each moment shared further illuminating the reasons why his wife would select the elf as a friend. He was both valiant and courteous, regal in his proportions and speech, but humble in manner when the occasion required him to be so. He held no high opinion of himself, though he held Altariel above all other esteem, doting upon her at times like a father upon a favourite child. But at other times...at other times, his attention to her was something more.

Eomer stood with his bow held lax, his last two arrows discarded on the ground by his feet. He watched as Legolas aimed - seemingly effortlessly - at the make-shift target quiet some yards away, and releasing his arrow, Eomer watched as it's head plunged directly into the absolute centre of the target. 

" That is another mark on the tally, I believe." Legolas said happily as he walked away from the rough line the two men had drawn in the dirt to mark a shooting point. He stood beside Eomer for a moment, resplendent in his effortless victory over the King - surely he was less than speaking terms with common sense to challenge an elf to a round of targets?

Eomer smiled blithely and picking up an arrow he approached the shooting point. " Let us see if that tally can not be broken." He said slowly, trying to concentrate on the centre of the target. In his mind's eye the arrow had already left his bow and was plunging through the shaft of Legolas' where it was stuck in the centre of the target. But releasing the arrow he was brutally rebuffed, as its shaft plunged not into the centre of the target, but away over the edge. He stood scratching his head for a moment, wondering what had gone wrong.

Legolas stepped forward and patted Eomer's shoulder in a consolatory manner. " It seems a broken tally is not meant to be." He laughed lightly and lay his bow carefully down on the ground. He turned to look back at Medulsed in the centre of the city, from where they stood at the gates of Edoras, Medulsed seemed like a glimmering box of gold and dark wood. " Come, I shall collect the arrows and we shall return to Medulsed and see if your Lady can not provide a midday meal as reward to the winner." With that the elf jogged off towards the target and began plucking the arrows from the board.

Eomer ground his teeth, glaring at the elf. Why did Legolas bother him so? There seemed no fault, which could be attributed to Legolas, but all the same Eomer was aware that within his mortal body burned a deep dislike for Legolas. Something in his manner - most noticeable when Altariel was in their company - brushed Eomer in the wrong way, and often he found the silken voice of the elf made the little hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It was as though some higher power were warning him to be weary of the elf, implanting within his mind a sense of foreboding that no good could come of such a friendship. Eomer was barely aware, in his broiling negativity, of picking up the arrow and fitting it to his bow.

Legolas stood at the target with his back towards Eomer, idly pulling the arrow heads from the target, trying to take as much time as he might, so as better to annoy Eomer, as this was often his desire in any exploit they entered into together...

But in a moment he turned, and flinging himself back against the target he looked down in mild horror at the arrow that had lodged it self into the target not a hair's breath from the exact point his head had been. Looking down at his arm he saw a thin rip in the sleeve of his tunic, the edges of the material stained slightly with fresh blood from where the arrowhead brushed his skin as it sped toward the target. Had he not the reflexes of an elf, he would not be musing over the destruction a favourite tunic.

He pulled the last of Eomer's thick and heavy red arrows from the target gruffly, snapping one in his hand as he turned back towards the King, who still stood holding his bow, flexing it periodically and grinning like an innocent fool. 

" Stretching a bow so will only shorten its life." Legolas said through gritted teeth as he dropped Eomer's arrows, including the broken one, to the ground below his feet. He replaced his own safely to his quiver and began to walk towards Medulsed without waiting for Eomer's response.

Coming to the base of the wide stone stairs leading to the Great Hall he met Altariel. She looked fresh and lively in her usual pale coloured gown. Her hair was loose, only one thin braid decorated with tiny crystals hung in her hair, beginning from her left temple and ending with the rest of her hair somewhere around her hips. She smiled brightly at Legolas as she ran towards him.

" Welcome the victorious!" She said as she squeezed Legolas' hand affectionately before turning to welcome Eomer with a demure kiss. " I watched your contest from afar, though I do not know why Eomer would challenge you to such an event without consideration for your natural skill with a bow, nor without telling me."

Legolas shrugged and turned his steely stare to Eomer. " It was no great event." He said coldly.

Altariel cocked an eyebrow, but chose to ignore the light tension between the two men. _Men will compete_, she told herself fondly, but stopped in her thought when she noticed the cut along Legolas' arm. " Perhaps I am yet mistaken and this was no contest, but an attack?" She said mockingly, raising a hand to Legolas' arm. 

Eomer set his jaw squarely and moulded his eyes into an appearance of contrived innocence. " My Lady?" He said questioningly.

Altariel frowned at her husband, not recognising the harsh tint at the edge of his voice, almost like anger. " I wish to find the blame for this wound, though it seems slight enough, it is strange all the same between two so skilled in the game of archery."

Legolas smiled and took Altariel's hand in his own, though he did not meet her eyes, but Eomer's. Theirs was a silent struggle, stretching between them, but barely noticed by Altariel. " No attack, my Lady, but bad aim on the part of my opposition."

Altariel chose not to comment, but simply released Legolas' hand and followed Eomer as he turned sharply on his heel and disappeared off into the distance.

*

Legolas was sitting alone in his room that evening when he heard a knock at his door. He ignored it for a moment while continuing the task of repairing the rip in his sleeve. But again the knock was heard, and this time he caste aside the project, hurling the offending article against the wall as he walked towards the door.

" What errand have you?!" He said gruffly as he pulled open the door. He was surprised to see Altariel standing before him, her face a study of surprise.

" No errand to warrant an obvious intrusion. I will leave you." She said shortly, turning to leave.

Legolas caught her wrist and pulled her towards the door. " I am sorry, but craft has never been my calling, though it serves me right for being proud." He said, almost as an after thought. Altariel stood silently by, held still by Legolas' grip on her arm. " I am sorry, please come in." Legolas said finally. He stepped aside as Altariel moved past him into the room.

They both stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, trying desperately to ignore the forced cordiality of the situation. Although it had been little more than a week since Legolas' arrival in Rohan, it had been a week in which little time had been left for either to share company together without the watchful stare of attendant or Eomer. Legolas had been most startled to open the door and find Altariel, for it had seemed that in the last week she had not sought him out once, but preferred to speak with him in the presence of her husband, almost as though she were afraid to speak with him by herself.

" Are you in any pain?" Altariel said suddenly, pointing to Legolas' arm. Her voice seemed to echo loudly against the walls, even though she had intended the words to by subtle.

Legolas shook his head. " No, it is merely a scratch, though a mysterious one at that."

" I fear at times my husband's temper does entirely govern him." Altariel said apologetically. " Were heated words exchanged?"

" None."

Altariel nodded and looked away, suddenly and acutely aware of the fact that Legolas wore no shirt. She walked to the window, looking for any detail in the cool, night landscape that would divert her attention from his smooth, pale skin. At her feet she saw the crumpled mess of his half-repaired tunic, and picking it up she began to work away at it, happy to have the distraction. 

Legolas smiled to himself at Altariel's reaction to his undress, but made no attempt to set right the situation. With some amount of amusement he watched her at the window as she artfully focused on her task. He took a step towards her, smiling again as she turned from him.

" How fortunate I am, to have a Queen repairing my clothes for me." He whispered, coming to stand behind Altariel. His hands slipped against her arms, but she made no move, spoke no protest at his closeness. 

" Knowing it is my husband's fault, I feel some responsibility-" Altariel stammered, trying with some futility to concentrate on the needle and cloth in her shaking hands.

" Why must you waste yourself defending him?" Legolas said, cutting her off. He closed his eyes and felt his palms graze against the bare skin of her neck, he tangled his fingers up in her hair like birds caught in a net, feeling just as helpless. " I see you daily, but you have no said a word to me at his command." He said in a hurt tone.

Altariel closed her eyes, feeling a hot tear slide down her cheek. " I defend not his actions, but my love, and do not as he commands, but as he asks."

" Aha! So he has asked this of you - to neglect a guest." Legolas said, his eyes and Altariel's flying open at his exclamation. He stepped back, leaving Altariel feeling first manipulated and now deprived by his touch. " I did not _know_ this much, but your words just now confirm my suspicions."

Altariel bit the threads off the knot as she finished repairing the rip. She tossed the tunic to Legolas - though he did not put it on - and sat down at the table. " You are no mere guest, Legolas, and as such I thought you would not need constant minding, though obviously I was wrong, if in your idleness you have turned to such unfounded suspicion."

Legolas sat down opposite Altariel now, clasping his hands together on the table in front of him. " Is it unfounded? I had expected you to tell the truth, Altariel, though obviously that was unfounded."

" My loyalty must be to my husband-"

" No," Legolas said firmly. " Your loyalty should be to yourself, and I do not know as such how you have come to such an end."

Altariel looked up in alarm. " What end is that?"

Legolas rolled his eyes, waving the offence in Altariel's question away. " You misinterpret my words. I see clearly the love you hold for Eomer, and laying aside the animosity with which he has come to regard me - now do not be offended by those words, for remember at this time we speak truth - I see he is at roots a good man, no less worthy of your love than...than myself."

" What, in my conduct, has planted such a distaste for me within your voice then?" Altariel said.

Legolas sighed heavily. " The words I gave you in Lorien I would not repeat unless the response were ensured to be alternate, for to high a ransom did I pay for them the first time. But as such, I would say they are as clear in your mind as they are in my own, if not slightly weaker for the fact you do not hold me in such high esteem as I do you." He paused and ran his fingers along the edge of his chin, " I came to Rohan at your bidding, to meet your King - who has shown me little courtesy beyond the want of necessity- and only so I might look once more upon that face that is fairest to me. Your father appointed me before he died, to look after his children and to see to the best of my body, that they were happy, before I might reclaim my life and time, and go where I willed. Your sisters and brother I have seen come safely into their lives, and the tale of Arwen Undomiel I need not relate. And so I ask you now, Altariel, are you happy in where you have come?" His words were grave and heavy on his tongue, knowing he placed too importance on the response of Altariel.

She considered his words for a moment, leaning back in her chair, her fingers slipped up under her sleeve and felt the smooth, reassuring presence of the ring. She raised her eyes to look at Legolas once more. " I am content. Though for my part I have brought you to Rohan for selfish purpose, my happiness I did think it would ensure to have one so close to my past, but it pains me to cause discontent, as I do see before me. Therefor I promise that my attention will belong more often to your voice and company."

Legolas waved her comment away, pulling his eyes from Altariel's gaze. " It matters little the promises you would make, there is only one I would here happily, and not prophet is needed to predict the impossibility of that event." His words her cryptic and harsh.

" It matters little? Is this the art of word that high esteem rewards me?" 

" I did not care to tell you this news in such a way...have you spoken of late with Gimli?" Legolas said suddenly.

Altariel shook her head. 

" He sent word to me not two days since, of the majesty that the Lossefalme has achieved in it's homely port, and the fact that Gimli's final arts have been completed. I am to leave for my return to Ithilien come the morning, and as little the promises in Rohan matter little. Now do you understand?"

Altariel bit her lip to fight back tears, but did not lower her head, instead staring bravely into the eyes of Legolas. " It seems that we are ever coming to a flight of some sort, you and I. Twice I have flown from your side, the last a near escape before you yourself left Rivendell. As such I expected no more than brief goodbyes from you, ere your time came to leave for Ithilien. Though I did not think it would be so soon." She stood up and carefully slid her chair under the table neatly. Legolas remained seated, but followed her every move.

He agreed with Altariel, and in doing so felt a strange lethargy wash over him. " I would not have it so, but fate does not deal kindly to all."

Altariel nodded silently. She walked slowly around the table and coming to stand before Legolas she considered what farewell she could give him. For what could one say when confronted by the prospect of loosing a friend for an eternity? She knew only one. She bent to the ground, kneeling before him. She looked deep into his eyes, running her hand through his hair and along the line of his strong jaw. She kissed his sweet lips, not knowing from whose eyes a salty tear did slide, but feeling it's weight land on her throat.

Legolas' hands itched to pull Altariel closer to him, but he resisted. And when that kiss had ended, and her fingers no longer lingered on his skin, he had no words, and simply turned from her to hold his head in his hands and close his eyes.

Altariel slipped quietly from the room with no words. She laid her hand against the great horse on the door, and wept silently. Altariel recalled the words of Celeborn, and felt anew the sensation that had periodically swept over here since standing before Legolas on that path in Rivendell. _It is folly to love the elves, _she thought bitterly, hating Celeborn briefly for having warned her of this fact, for being warned she felt all the more wretched when knowing she did love an elf.

***


	14. Released

Legolas woke with the first light of day, dressing quickly. He collected his meagre belongings from around the room that he had temporarily called home. In his absence the room was left cold, sterile in the dawn-light, no evidence to show it had housed an elf. Legolas stood with his back to the great-carved wooden door, wondering in which direction he should escape. He meant first to exit quietly, through the passage that led to the kitchens and the servant's quarters, but after walking that corridor for only a few minutes he found himself completely lost. When finally he managed to navigate his way back to his door he resigned himself to leaving via the way he had first come - through the maze of corridors that lead from the Golden Hall.

As a rule, an elf does not need to employ caution if not wanting to be heard, but Legolas made sure his steps would not be heard by any. He passed like a morning shadow past the empty rooms and dimly lit corridors of Medulsed, until finally he found the main corridor he followed widening out into the shadowy, but warm gloom of the Great Hall. As always it's walls glittered softly in the flickering light of many candles held in great stone brackets in the walls. He walked silently through the great columns of the Hall, his back at all times to the end of the great room where the ornate throne of Eomer stood, and beside it the slightly smaller throne of Altariel. 

__

Altariel. He shook her name from his mind. Even the whisper of the alias through the corners of his conscious befuddled him, trudging scored and scared memories up from the depths to play again across his eyes. He felt tinged with guilt for leaving in such a cowardly manner...But no, he had said his goodbyes the night before. He had made his desires clear, clearer even than they had been in Lorien, where the wants of his mind and soul had been sullied by words. He had thought at the time that his words would be enough, but they had proved to weak to break through the wall that Elessiel had erected around herself. _Altariel._ Legolas feared the effect that alter ego had on the daughter of Aragorn. Letting the thoughts ripple back through him, he could recollect the minutest detail of Elessiel as she had been in Minas Tirith, standing on the battlements of the citadel. Those memories flickered and faded, making way for the first time Legolas had laid eyes on Elessiel in Imladris. She had seemed so different, older, wiser, each moment seeming to touch on something she did not know could not control. It was as if she had discovered a power within her, but did not yet know how to use it. Imladris had been the second time Elessiel had rejected him. In Minas Tirith it had been nothing more than the denial of sharing her thoughts, of taking the comfort that Legolas tried to extend. But in Rivendell it was different. They had stood too close, spoken too many soft and heart-felt words to walk away without being effected. In that moment, standing on the night-time path, Legolas had wanted nothing more than to hold Elessiel in his arms and felt the softness of her lips against his skin, but she had not felt the same. For whatever reasons she held within her, she had found the only means of responding to flee the haven of Elrohir and Elladan...

Legolas had forced himself into a world where she did not exist. In the city of Cirdan, no mortals mattered, save Gimli, his dearest and oldest friend. And yet the Lossefalme had been more than a craft built for Legolas and Gimli's journey. It was a symbol of their friendship, and the beauty held therein. For a time Legolas thought he had escaped Elessiel's spectral presence in his endless life. But once the Lossefalme was completed, even as Legolas had stood on the docks watching the great white ship depart into the distance, Elessiel's image had crept back into his mind. She had chased him across the lands towards Ithilien. In the long hours of silence, when only the stone and grass whispered to Legolas, Elessiel's words played over in his head...His eyes would close, his pace would slow, and suddenly he would be back in Rivendell, on that starry evening, standing before she who was most beautiful. In such a despicable way his love had grown - not held proudly above his head for all the world to see, but hidden within his body and soul, slowly seeping from the innermost recesses of his being until it consumed him wholly, from the middle of his heart to the tips of his fingers. It was his loved that fluttered in the wind that blew his hair, and the sweet taste on his lips when he drank water, the cool touch of earth beneath his feet. Then finally, at the moment when Elessiel seemed furthest away, and Legolas fought hardest to keep her from his mind - for the futility of his love was not lost on him - she was there. Those long and wondrous moments in Lorien...when all the world outside the tree top palace that Elessiel had lead him to had disappeared. Legolas had thought his skin had melted away, giving him the courage to profess his love. But aside from all the words that he had spoken, an unwelcome discovery had been made - Altariel. She was shield that Elessiel had built around her, to protect the youngest daughter of Aragorn from the trauma of life, or of the death of her parents. That was how it seemed...

Legolas winced as he pushed open the heavy wooden doors at the end of Great Hall. The sun pierced his eyes momentarily as it peeked over the eastern hills in the distance. He stood for a moment on the edge of the great steps, tilting his face into the wind. It was good day for riding, and ride he would. 

He practically ran to the stables, sacrificing much of his stealth for speed. Each moment that he stayed in Edoras was a moment too long. A moment when he would remember all the things he had said to Altariel, trying to break her down and reveal Elessiel, all the things he had said, and still failed. But mostly he shuddered at the mental image of himself the previous night. He saw Altariel staring out of the window, avoiding the sight of him. He had caught something in her eye at that moment, a flicking caught by the setting sun, the burrowed into his mind. He had thought her shield was lowered, he had thought she would finally listen. But he had been wrong, and that knowledge made him all the more resentful of his actions - seizing her by the arms, punishing himself by holding her close, letting the sweet smell of her hair, the soft perfume of her skin sweep him up. Edoras was so thick with that scent it made Legolas almost wretch as he swung open the doors of the stables. 

He hurried in silence as he packed his horse, concentrating not on his task, or what was around him, but totally focused on one purpose. To block every thought of Elessiel, or Altariel - whatever name she chose to gave herself - from his mind. Mounting his horse lightly and reigning it towards the doors he failed dismally to register the person creeping up behind him.

" You were going to leave without saying goodbye."

Being an elf, and naturally predisposed to grace, Legolas was just as close to falling from his horse when he heard those choked words. His horse was almost at the doors, and he leapt down silently to open them, not looking at the owner of the tormented voice.

" Were you? I would have expected more from an Elf." her words were slightly sneered, as though to cover the inherit anxiety in her voice.

Legolas sighed heavily and turned towards Altariel heavily, his face stony, his mind fighting to keep the emotion from his eyes and voice. " I would expect not to be mocked." He said flatly. He stared at Altariel silently. She stood in the middle of the stables, wearing the same dress she had worn the night before. Her hair was tousled, and her eyes were dark. She had not been to bed the previous night?

" Then we are both obviously under false impressions." She murmured.

Legolas laughed harshly, the sound cutting into Altariel's flesh and making her jump slightly. " _Obviously._ But no matter, impressions, false or otherwise between us, are no longer needed." He paused and mounted his horse again. " And so I go." He shrugged and smiled bitterly before turning away. He rode slowly from the stables, letting the doors fall closed loudly. He had already been discovered by the one person he wished to remain hidden to, and being conspicuous was the least of his worries now.

Altariel bit her lip and cursed her heavily skirts as she ran from the stables after Legolas. Gasping, she arrived at his side, walking quickly to keep up with the pace of his horse.

" Legolas, _please."_ She reached up and grasped his hand tightly. Legolas stopped, and allowed himself the luxury of being pulled into her stare. " Please don't leave like this, and think...and think that I don't love you."

" But how do you love me? Like your forefather with advice, who I am old enough to be? Like your brother who would sacrifice the world for your happiness, knowing I would? Or like a lover? The only soul that matches your own. For that is the only way I would have you love me." He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and shook his head. When he looked again at Altariel there were tears in her eyes. " But that is not how you love me. You love me...you love me as the dear friend of your father, who loves you with the wisdom of a forefather, the kindness of a brother. But not the lust of a lover." 

" What do you want from me?" She said sadly. She shook her head, and Legolas had to close his eyes to image of her golden hair shimmering in the sunlight.

" Who are you? Elessiel? Altariel? Nay, do not say _her_, that woman I hate for keeping me from my love. _Altariel..._I hate the name and wish never to speak it again. That is why no goodbye could cross my lips."

" Legolas-"

" No!" He pulled his hand sharply from her grip " Do not speak. Let me leave your life, thinking somewhere inside you there is a love that matches my own, let me leave without saying goodbye..." He bit his lip and frowned deeply, looking east towards the sun as it climbed higher into the topaz sky. " I do not understand you, daughter of Aragorn. For one so sweet, you should be incapable of causing pain. But pain you have caused, and while the wearing of your days will drag your broken heart, and the scar on your sweet palm, into the earth, my pain, and the scars you cause, will last forever. When the last sun sets, and the world is new, my pain will still stand beside me like a much hated companion. If no other memory you should choose to keep of me, keep that. Wear it around your neck like a weight that would carry you down to the depth of the sea. It shall be my mark upon you. And for my part, I shall wear it proudly on my hand. In my palm where you leave your mark." He turned, and spurred his horse on so greatly and loudly, that many of the folk of Edoras who were just waking from their sleep cried aloud and stopped their business, running to their doors to see the last elf who would walk amongst men in their lifetime, as he rode like a mad horseman from the gates of Edoras into the plains beyond.

***


	15. A Path Found

An elf riding across the land like the wind of a storm is spurred on by need and anger. The earth seems to rise to the hooves of the elf's horse, and hurry the beast along to its destination, so horse and elf arrive at their home sooner than any could believe. Old forests, old stones, old water, mourn the passing of such a creature as an elf towards the shores of Middle-earth. For old forests, old stones, and old water all know that when an elf rides like the wind towards the sea, no arms could hold him back, no voice could call him from his task.

Many who saw the passing of Legolas across the plains, towards the south, thought he was lost spirit, caught up in the wind and dancing across the scape of their eyes to remind them of some race long passed. For it is common knowledge much adhered to among common Men, that elves had long since journeyed beyond the seas to their eternal home. In any event, what cause would have elf have to come so swiftly riding from the north? 

None but one know.

*

The people of Edoras watched their queen, arrayed in her white gowns of silk and beads, falling to her knees in the mud. She clutched at the earth like a woman possessed, and the tears that fell from her stormy eyes were like the waves of an ocean. Her cry reverberated against the wood and stone dwellings of her people, whose hands flew to their mouths in shock. Many women cried as well, as they saw what happened next.

The Queen stood slowly, her hands and knees dirty and black, her deathly face streaked with ceaseless tears. She lurched painfully to the left, a rip opening loudly in her dress at her right knee, pulling from where her foot had caught in her hem. She stood biting her lip for a lifetime it seemed, before she covered her face in her hands, and uttering the most piteous cry ever heard by man, flew from the audience that had gathered, disappearing into the twisting lanes of the city, but leaving behind the lingering stigma of her cry. 

While at that same moment Hurien sat at the edge of the great steps of Medulsed, looking out towards the north as she did every morning. Hurien did not notice her mistress running from through the alleys of Edoras towards Medulsed. She was too transfixed by the great black clouds that where gathering in the north, mounting a great battle against the early sun where it rose in the eastern sky. This would be a storm to remember.

*

She could not think. Could not keep her hands from shaking. Could not keep her teeth from chattering in her mouth, nor the words of Legolas pushing themselves against the corners of her mind. She collapsed against the clean sheets of the bed in her dressing chamber, thankful that Eomer had insisted on her having a private chamber "to think in". Her tears did not stop, but they were no longer cold on her cheeks, no longer accompanied by a dying cry. Her tears were warm, thick, measured. The collapse of her mind was giving way to a plan, a desire beyond any she had ever felt before, which was moulding it's self into a cold and calculated plot that left no detail untended. 

She rose slowly, removed her clothes carefully, so calm she even though to write a note to Hurien saying that should she wish to mend the dress, Hurien should consider it a gift to be kept. She bathed slowly, scrubbing the night's grit from her skin, and mud from her knees and palms. She stopped to finger the small scar on her palm where her ring had cut into her skin oh-so-long-ago in Lorien. _Legolas has the same scar._ Even though she did not speak the words, they caused a tight ball of anxiety to form in her chest. And all the while, as she washed her hair slowly and meticulously, the tears mixed with the stone-cold water, and the plan in her mind grew into a sapling of cunning and grief. She knew what must be done.

*

Hurien went about her duties slowly, wondering at the lack of haste in her movements. She delighted in the sound of the first drops of rain hitting the roof above her as she walked slowly down the corridor towards her mistress' chambers. It was strange that the Queen had not yet called on her...very strange.

She opened the door to Altariel's private chambers quietly, assuming the Queen was still asleep. She was stunned to find Altariel sitting by the window, fully dressed and quickly braiding her hair tightly together. Her confusion deepened as she noticed Altariel's dress. It was a travelling dress, light and plain. And lying beside her on the bench below the window was long , extremely worn riding cloak and ladies' overcoat.

" I do not think riding would be advisable today, my Lady." Hurien said. She tried to keep the tone of her voice happy, but suspicion tinged the edges. " Have you not seen the weather. It is foul. Altariel?"

Altariel stood and pulled on her overcoat. Hurien was momentarily distracted by the coat. _It is elfish dress._ It's long, sweeping bell sleeves came to just below Altariel's knees. It's colour was the deepest purple, shot with red and blue, hemmed at the floor, and at the high collar around Altariel's neck with tiny stones. It was beautiful, and obviously very old. The cloak, on the other hand, was another story. Its colour was undefinable, and it was obviously made for a man, who had seen many a long day in it. The only concession to beauty that the cloak made was a small silver clasp in the shape of a mallorn leaf at the neck. Though, shabby as it was, Altariel wore it proudly.

Altariel came to stand close to Hurien, and Hurien noticed for the first time the tears that rolled down Altariel's pale cheeks. Altariel smiled suddenly, and gave a sharp little laugh. " After coming so far...for the rain to stop me! No, Hurien, no weather is foul enough to stop that journey which I have halted for to long already."

" What journey?" Hurien said with wonder, for the light within Altariel's eyes was half between scaring her and making her smile.

" I have found my path, Hurien," Altariel hissed " I will not ask for luck, for the favour of some higher power, I feel is against me. All I may ask is a favour."

" Anything, Your Majesty." Hurien said quickly.

" Care for Eomer, he will rage when he finds...the truth. Tell him this, and only this: Altariel has loved him with all the stars in the sky. But she has been lost while wandering, and shall never be found again." 

The Queen of Rohan kissed the forehead of her maid and friend, and ran down the corridors she had called home for so many months. None saw her go, not the guards of the Gates, not the wardens of the Doors. At least in escaping on her horse, she was in luck, if nothing more.

*

Fabled among the creatures of all lands, are the Maedros. They are the horses of the ancient horse lords, friends, and not servants to the most valiant of the Rohorrim since the days of old. And while their numbers dwindle, there are few that hold the line. These horses are prized, valued among all other beasts for their speed, their grace, their intelligence, bravery, and the lengths at which they will travel without pause. Gandalf the Grey once stole the heart of Rohan from the King Theoden, before the War of the Ring. And fro Shadowfax the Great, when he was returned to his horse lords, came a thin line of kin, Niphredil the mare of the Queen being the last and final of that line.

That horse, that - it was told in later days - bore her mistress across the leagues of the land, into the far south, through waves of rain so thick as to drown all of Middle-earth. Through night unguarded Niphredil rode, pausing only briefly for rest, on through the grey, rain scared day that followed. So they passed into the south in only two days and nights, like a phantom. 

The story of such a passing was told over a pint and a pipe in many parts in following days. Some did not believe the story that a Queen so noble and great among her people would fly from her home in such a fury of grief. Other's told of her parents, "queer folk from Gondor" they said, not knowing how close their words came to the truth.

For only one now knows the origins of the woman 'Altariel', though even he does not know why she fled.

***


End file.
